Mets’ Pete Alonso delivers heroic homer after teammate makes the shot

MILWAUKEE – In the chaos of elation, the New York Mets let the star of the party escape for a moment Thursday night.

Someone quickly shouted, “Where’s Pete?”

The search lasted only a few moments.

“He’s there!” someone else shouted.

Another Mets player then loudly instructed, “Everyone attack Pete!”

Within seconds, several Mets players took turns draining their champagne bottles over Pete Alonso. “Pete! Pete! Pete!” they sang.

Alonso enjoyed the moment. While holding a can of beer with one hand and a bottle of champagne with the other, he wrapped his arms around Jose Iglesias and squeezed him into a bear hug.

In the embrace, Iglesias told Alonso: “Thank you for listening.”

The second baseman was referring to the message he delivered just before the bottom of the eighth inning. That’s when Iglesias, from his position at second base, told Alonso, “Next inning you’re going to hit a home run.”

What happened next is already etched in Mets lore. In the ninth inning of the decisive Game 3 of the Wild Card Series, the Mets trailed by two runs. With one out, they had runners on first and third base. Alonso carried a weeks-long slump with composure and stepped up to the plate. He hit a three-run home run off Milwaukee Brewers closer Devin Williams to save the Mets’ season and send New York to the Division Series.

Pete Alonso struggled early, but before this three-run home run, he told his hitting coach, “I feel like I’m there.” (Benny Sieu / Imagn images)

“It was the intention,” said Iglesias after the 4-2 win. “I’ve seen walk-offs and all that, but this is one of my happiest moments. It’s a dream come true.”

Iglesias, one of the Mets’ clubhouse leaders whose catchy song “OMG” turned into the rallying cry of the season, had offered encouragement to Alonso all day.

“He felt a little strange,” Iglesias said. “I told him, ‘Be on time. Timing is everything.’ And now? Man, I’m so proud of him.”

Later, in a rare moment on the pitch when he wasn’t drawing a crowd, Alonso echoed Iglesias’ simple but consistent message: “It meant a lot.” Really a lot. It meant so much to me.”

The Mets needed Alonso to come through for a while. Big time. His walking year had no special moments. But club officials always said the same thing: that his power could change a game in an instant. Still, his last extra-base hit was on September 19. Before the home run, Alonso went 0-for-3 with a strikeout in the seventh inning. It doesn’t matter. He still believed.

In the seventh inning, Alonso used a relaxed tone when he told Mets co-hitting coach Eric Chavez, “I just swing right through these pitches. I feel like I’m there. One stroke away.”

Recalling the conversation, Chavez said, “He was calmer than me.”

Players often tell coaches things like this, so Chavez wasn’t sure how to interpret the message. However, he noticed at least one thing that he would later say would be important. Alonso, despite the slump and the toughness of his Mets career potentially ending Thursday night, remained positive.

On a 3-1 offering from Williams, Alonso sent a changeup that got too much plate 367 feet over the wall in right field. He said he knew right away it was a home run. At first base, Brandon Nimmo said he wasn’t so sure. After all, the Mets hadn’t hit a home run in the first two games of the series. So Nimmo said he just hoped the ball would come over an outfielder’s head. But Alonso kept running towards Nimmo. So Nimmo looked at the outfield one more time and said to himself, “Oh my God.”

By the time Alonso reached second base, almost all of the Mets’ players had left the dugout.

“Words can’t explain it,” said Alonso. “This is unreal.”

Mets owner Steve Cohen tried to construct a few sentences.

“Great players, they come through in the clutch, right?” said Cohen. “Just an incredible moment for him, for the team.”

The Mets would have gone far without Alonso putting them on his back. When he’s hot, the Mets are all the more dangerous ahead of their game against the Philadelphia Phillies starting Saturday afternoon.

Before the game, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza again maintained confidence in Alonso, saying: “We are waiting for that one swing. Hopefully today is the day.”

Worth the wait.

“Proud of him,” Mendoza said after the game. “It’s a dream come true for him and for all of us.”

Seven minutes after the Mets advanced, and as the team celebrated on the field, the fans behind the New York dugout at American Family Field began chanting loudly, “Pete A-lon-so! Pete A-lon-so!”

It’s a name now deeply ingrained in Mets playoff history.

(Top photo of Pete Alonso: Credit: Benny Sieu / Imagn Images)