Darryl Strawberry hit 335 homers as a major leaguer. The vast majority of his first 252 flew over the moon. Not coincidentally, I was over the moon for all of them, because a) all 252 deposited runs into the account of the New York Mets; and b) Darryl Strawberry was Darryl Strawberry.
YEAH! HIS FIRST!
YEAH! HIS FIRST AT HOME!
YEAH! HE’S REALLY GETTING GOING NOW!
YEAH! HE’S ON HIS WAY TO WHAT THEY SAID HE’D BE!
And so on and so forth and so gloriously off clocks and roofs and scoreboards and everything else a dinger could ding for eight seasons. Those 252 home runs were essential elements of what a Mets fan lived for between 1983 and 1990.
Darryl Strawberry’s next 83 home runs rarely rose above the level of peripheral concern to this viewer.
Glad he’s having a nice season, I guess.
Good to see him back in the game after what he’s been through.
Three-hundred for his career — hey, that’s something.
Oh look, they began to raise the Apple for him, the only remotely charming thing about his team borrowing our stadium on an afternoon when theirs is crumbling.
For as long as he was becoming and remaining the greatest home run hitter in New York Mets history, Darryl Strawberry connecting his bat to a ball, and that ball traveling far, was cause for at least a little reaction. The first 252 such episodes drew the heartiest cheers. The next 83 incidences, from slugging that transpired between 1991 and 1999 in uniforms that meant nothing or worse in our estimation, elicited a slight smile now and then; a handful of golf claps; and a low hum of regret. Darryl — whose post-playing path surely rates sincerest applause — should have kept connecting as a New York Met, without interruption, and the homers should have flown only for us.
If you heard Pete Alonso hit a big home run Friday night, you didn’t have to wonder for whom he hit it before measuring your response accordingly. It was the 234th of Pete’s big league career. Every one has been hit as a Met. You could just cheer as you had on 233 prior occasions.
YEAH! PETE!
At some point this season, as long as his health and ability hold out, Pete will hit his 253rd, all as a Met, making him the greatest home run hitter in New York Mets history. David Wright stalling out at 242 is a reminder we should always knock wood for health. Ability, certainly in the short term, doesn’t seem to be an issue. Pete was so good coming out of the gate this season that he was named National League Player of the Month for April, which wasn’t just about home runs, but he did belt seven of them amid slashing at a rate that elevated his OPS well into four digits. He put down a marker for May kudos with his eighth long ball of the year on Friday night, blasted in St. Louis, the same town where Darryl once did his best to stop time. Straw struck the old Busch Stadium’s scoreboard clock down the stretch in 1985 to win us a crucial pennant race game. Pete didn’t have to do anything quite so anti-temporal in this Mets-Cards contest. Why would he? He’s having the time of his life right now and so are we.
About to shout “YEAH!” for the 234th time.
Pete put us ahead in the fifth inning at the current Busch Stadium. Juan Soto had doubled (itself a leading indicator that more than one Met might enjoy this forthcoming month), and Pete followed up by taking Sonny Gray over the center field wall. What was a 3-2 Cardinals lead was now a 4-3 Mets edge. Things had see-sawed through the game’s first half. They had led, 1-0. We were up, 2-1. They had pulled ahead, 3-2. With Pete’s swing, the Mets all but announced the teeter-totter was closed for the evening.
The visitors kept coming as the fifth progressed, helped along immeasurably by Cards first baseman Willson Contreras dropping a surefire inning-ending double play relay. Their mistake, but our creating conditions for one that might do them in. Because we had runners on first and third after Alonso homered, the non-DP grounder made it 5-3. Because the hitting continued via the second chance Contreras graciously provided, the Met lead grew to 6-3 before the fifth ended. Eventually, the Mets padded their advantage to a final of 9-3. The last New York run, in the top of the ninth, was delivered on a Luisangel Acuña sac fly. If you like awards bestowed for season segments, Acuña was named National League Rookie of the Month for April. Pete collected a few of those honors when he was a pup.
The Polar Bear is fully grown and still a Met. He’s grown enough so that his game is no longer literal boom or veritable bust, and he’s been a Met long enough to near Darryl Strawberry at the top of a chart where our first truly transcendent homegrown slugger has resided for more than half of the franchise’s lifetime. The list as of this moment reads Strawberry 252; Wright 242; Alonso 234 and counting. The National League’s reigning Player of the Month is No. 3 with a speeding bullet. The satisfaction attached to watching him move up feels unsurpassed.
Go Pete Go!
BTW – Tyrone Taylor is the team’s true starting CF.
Gonna raise my hand as being wrong about Pete before this year. Thought he was starting his decline. I’m hoping he makes Steve pony up for 5 years and 150 million once the year’s done.
Alvarez is so inconsistent – looks clueless one night, abuses pitchers the next, even if they were all singles. Pete as player of the month was half-expected. Acuna as rookie was a very pleasant surprise.
What if Alonso pulls a ‘Daniel Jones’, though? As in, good start to career, long and significant enough decline to put his future with the team in doubt, but plays well in a contract year, gets long-term contract…then resumes long significant decline and sucks thereafter. I don’t blame Stearns for approaching Alonso’s long-term status with the Mets warily.
On the other hand, Alonso’s role model is Paul Goldschmidt. Cardinals let go of Goldschmidt because he looked washed up, and now he’s raking with the Yankees at age 37.
I consider that an archetype kind of win, the kind I expected from the 2025 Mets. Solid pitching, not the kind of exceptional pitching we’ve seen so far, that allows 3 or 4 runs, and the offense grinds down the opponent with 6 runs, tacking on with clockwork hitting up and down the line-up.