Pete Alonso powering Mets’ playoff run

This all really started for the Mets, this big baseball story they’re still trying to write, the first week of April, when they were 0-5 and playing the second game of a doubleheader against the Tigers at a mostly empty Citi Field that was as dead as they looked at the time.

The Mets had been no-hit into the seventh inning that day and were still trailing 1-0 in the ninth inning when Pete Alonso reached down for a pitch from Alex Faedo that was barely off the ground and somehow powered the ball — or golfed it, more accurately — over the left-center-field wall. That home run tied the game before Tyrone Taylor won it with a single a few batters later. And the Mets weren’t 0-6. They were on the board for 2024.

“I’m just happy we’re able to turn the page,” Alonso said that day. “Any game that you can win in the big leagues is a big deal, especially when you split hairs at the end of the year. It doesn’t matter if it’s at the beginning or at the end or in the middle, every game matters just the same.”

That was April. Friday was October for Alonso and the Mets, and they were down three games to one to the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, with next season staring at them from every corner of their ballpark and all the way to Flushing Bay. Only then Alonso, who had already saved the Mets’ season in Game 3 of their Wild Card Series with a three-run, come-from-behind, ninth-inning home run, came to the plate with two runners on against Jack Flaherty in the bottom of the first inning.

The Citi Field crowd knew as well as Alonso that there was a chance this was the last game in orange and blue for the impending free agent, and they gave him ovations and chanted his name at every opportunity. He returned the favor by smashing the kind of majestic homer he has made his calling card.

In April, Alonso said every game matters the same. This one mattered a whole lot more to Alonso and the Mets, on a day when they were playing to keep playing. They didn’t quit in April on a day when Citi Field was as quiet as a library and the Mets were desperate to get a win. They were more desperate on Friday, because they didn’t want what has been such a wonderful season for them and for their fans to end.

“I was just looking for something over the middle of the plate,” Alonso said Friday, when trying to make sense of hitting a pitch as low as that one was as far as he did. “I didn’t really realize how low the pitch was. I got caught a little out front. … Honestly, it’s inexplainable. It’s the magic of the postseason. And I’m just happy I squared it up.”

He squared the ball up. The Mets get their chance, on the other side of the country, to square up this National League Championship Series, in Game 6 on Sunday. They came back again, the way they came back in April against the Tigers, the way they came back from being 22-33 at the end of May. Then they came back against the Braves on the day when they clinched a Wild Card spot. A few days later, they came back against the Brewers when Alonso hit that home run with one out in the ninth inning against Brewers closer Devin Williams.

On Friday, the Mets didn’t just come back against a pitcher, Flaherty, who had thrown seven shutout innings when the Dodgers were beating the Mets 9-0 in Game 1. The Mets also came back on the Dodgers after they had lost the two previous games by a combined score of 18-2. Alonso had already made his big October swing against the Brewers. Now he made another against the Dodgers at a moment when the Mets needed to punch back and punch back hard.

So, Francisco Lindor singled to start the bottom of the first and Brandon Nimmo walked and then Pete Alonso, the Polar Bear, free agent to be, a guy who hit 53 homers as a rookie, made it 3-0 for the Mets. After 8-0 and 10-2, those three runs felt like a lot more. The story didn’t end for the Mets. They got back up again, even if it’s just for one more game.

Pete Alonso says you can’t explain these things. He says there is just magic in baseball sometimes. There is. The Mets have had plenty this October. The Guardians had some Thursday night with two late home runs, the last from David Fry. That kind of month in baseball.

The Mets fought so hard to get to October. Now they don’t want to leave. Pete Alonso didn’t hit as many home runs during the regular season as he expected. He’s hitting them now. He got the Mets their first win over six months ago with one he hit, nearly digging a ball out of the dirt and hitting it over the wall Citi Field. Did it again, 432 feet to center on Friday, got the Mets their latest win. Like Yogi Berra said about another improbable Mets team once, “Ain’t over ‘till it’s over.”