Payback’s a Bear

Congratulations to Pete Alonso of the Baltimore Orioles on hitting his 300th career home run at Citi Field. Please go hit No. 301 somewhere else.

Pete’s having gone somewhere else is what got us into this particular mess, the one in which a 3-2 Met lead in the top of the ninth inning became a tie game en route to a 7-5 eleven-inning Met loss Tuesday night at home. That’s home, as in the physical home of the New York Mets and the forever spiritual home of the Polar Bear. I came into this series hoping we’d see No. 300 (two of them, including Francisco Lindor’s as yet unseen double-oh longball) take flight in Flushing. As the series went on, I clarified my hope and pulled for Pete to pick a relatively inconsequential spot to go deep and therefore wound shallow. Like not in the ninth inning with a game in the balance.

Alonso had his own ideas. So did a vocal portion of the crowd that not only stood to applaud Pete’s milestone (which I could see myself doing in that “ya gotta hand it to the guy” manner, but kept it up until Pete was convinced to take a curtain call. He knew how to do that in this ballpark. Doing it in an Orioles uniform didn’t make it any less natural from his perspective — nor to those fans who called for him to emerge from behind the third base dugout curtain.

This was probably a bit of a drag for Kodai Senga, who was trying to protect the lead and for the first time in his tenure as closer pro tempore didn’t. Judging by the postgame questions directed at Senga, starter Sean Manaea, and manager Andy Green, the fans’ pro-Pete boomlet, gaining steam when it did, struck Met media as an aberrant reaction. In the moment, it didn’t seem all that odd to me. Pete is Pete. We are who we are. Pete gave us seven seasons, #LFGM, and the first 264 of those 300 home runs. The team he was facing was in the process of giving us an 82nd loss the night after it was mathematically eliminated from postseason consideration. We root for them to win every pitch and every swing, anyway, unless a special situation breaks in with a bulletin that interrupts our regularly scheduled programming.

“This just out: A Pete Alonso home run, headed for the stratosphere, or at least the facing of the second deck of Citi Field. He is currently rounding the bases to a rapturous reception despite no longer playing for the team that plays more games here than any other team does. The fans continue to swoon, as they wish for Alonso to acknowledge their approval of his 414-foot blast, and there he his, stepping back onto the field and offering a wave in return for their cheers. This has been a special report. We now resume our coverage of the Mets-Orioles game, tied at three with one out in the top of the ninth inning.”

Back to business from there, which was unfortunately the business of clinching a losing record for 2026. The ninth became the tenth, once Senga, to his credit, locked in and struck out his last two batters, and former Alonso Met teammates Rico Garcia and Josh Walker squelched a Met threat. The Orioles in the tenth scored one run when it appeared they were poised to score more. The Mets in the tenth scored one run when it appeared they could have scored two and made Alonso’s home run a footnote. Francisco Alvarez appeared all night to be overmatched by the challenge of hitting and catching.

Coby Mayo appeared in the eleventh as the reincarnation of Daylen Lile. Almost a year ago to the day, Lile, designated hitter for the Nationals, hit a ball to deep center at Citi that the Met center fielder, then Cedric Mullins, couldn’t corral, and it went for an eleventh-inning inside-the-park home run. This year, the Mid-Atlantic DH perpetrator played for a different team and hit it to a spot where a different midway flycatcher, A.J. Ewing, couldn’t quite make a play. Ewing fell down. The ball wound up surrounded by all three outfielders after it did its trickling, never a good omen for the defensive team. This was a home run that made no Mets fan swoon. It didn’t even leave the park.

Once all three Oriole runners, including Mayo, circled the bases, the Mets’ chances all but departed the premises, sort of like Alonso shortly after that September 2025 weekend versus Washington. At least this time there was no kick in the head to our Wild Card aspirations. The Mets rallied a tiny bit in the bottom of the eleventh Tuesday night and got the tying run to the plate, but not so it could step on the plate. The Mets lost their third in a row, still generating disappointment rather than apathy in the face of defeat, which I suppose represents a consolation prize of sorts.

Manaea — who was removed in the sixth despite pitching well for five-and-a-third, mostly because Green has watched Sean implode in too many sixths — tried to restrain his huffiness over being pulled and Pete being embraced in the face of impending Met doom. Sean’s been a mensch since he got here. He can be a little huffy if he needs to be. Alonso was soon seen outside the visitors’ clubhouse playing his usual role of Übermensch with the trio of Mets fans who returned his home run ball to him. He signed their jerseys. He gave them bats. He handed them beers. He promised to set them up with the royal Oriole treatment (“the whole nine yards”) if they want to come to Baltimore to see him play in his other home yard.

Pete never said anything to anybody that could be picked up by a microphone regarding how he sure showed those who chose not to keep him in a Met uniform. He wanted to win the game, he said. The Orioles are still pursuing a playoff spot. That’s what gets him going, he swore. He ends his public comments now with “Let’s Go O’s,” no F’s given. We didn’t hear from David Stearns. The fans’ chants calling for the POBO’s dismissal spoke for his part in this sidebar to a lost season. You can chant for Pete, and he’ll eventually homer. Shaking up the front office probably doesn’t happen as a result of the crowd demanding a reverse curtain call.

Shaking up the team in the wake of 2025’s shortfall didn’t work out swimmingly. The Polar Bear is splashing around making people happy in two cities. The POBO can point to isolated pockets of progress in Queens and signs eliciting optimism for the future. It’s not the same. Not yet. We’ll get back to valuing potential some other time.

Fan Appreciation Weekend is forthcoming. We’ll see who’s in the mood to appreciate who.