Pete Alonso, Mets stun Brewers with comeback win in Game 3, advance to NLDS
Pete Alonso #20 of the New York Mets rounds the bases after hitting a home run in the ninth inning against the Milwaukee Brewers during Game Three of the Wild Card Series at American Family Field on October 03, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Credit: Getty Images/John Fisher
MILWAUKEE — For the Mets, the scene Thursday night felt suddenly familiar, the signature sequence of their week and — if they keep doing this — their month.
A legacy-shaping moment from one of their best players. A crowded but quiet ballpark. A celebratory mob in the middle of the field.
With his team down to potentially its final two outs of the season, in what could have been his last moments in a Mets uniform, Pete Alonso hit a go-ahead three-run home run to rightfield off Brewers closer Devin Williams, lifting the Mets to a season-extending 4-2 win in Game 3 of their Wild Card Series.
It was the greatest moment of Alonso’s career.
“He deserves this moment,” said David Stearns, the Mets’ first-year president of baseball operations. “He’s a great Met. He’s someone who has given a tremendous amount to this franchise. To get a truly signature moment like that that will go down in the history books, that Mets fans will talk about generations, he deserves it. I’m glad he’s got it.”
Brandon Nimmo added: “I don’t think there was a more fitting way for this team to win it.”
And Alonso: “Words can’t explain. It’s just unreal.”
The Mets will face the Phillies in an NL Division Series beginning at 4 p.m. Saturday in Philadelphia. Former Met Zack Wheeler will pitch for the Phillies; Tylor Megill, the only fully rested starter, is likely to get the ball for the Mets, though they have not made that official.
That the Mets must make such decisions — including whether to add Kodai Senga to the roster — is the result of the players pulling out another absolute all-timer.
The spectacle mirrored their dramatics Monday in Atlanta, when Francisco Lindor’s go-ahead homer in the top of the ninth gave them a playoff berth on the final day (and in the second-to-last game) of the regular season.
Lindor again got things started Thursday, helping the Mets’ bats awaken from a game-long slumber by working a leadoff walk. Nimmo’s single through the right side, their first hit since the third inning, put runners at the corners. That brought up Alonso — who had not homered since Sept. 19 — as the would-be go-ahead run.
Williams left a 3-and-1 changeup on the outer third of the plate, Alonso lined it to rightfield and it just got over the wall. As he rounded first, with the sellout crowd standing but stunned into silence, Alonso offered a chef’s kiss and the rest of the Mets flooded out of the dugout.
Did they know it was gone immediately?
“No. No. No,” Lindor said. “I went back to tag [up]. It seemed like every ball we hit in that direction was getting caught.”
Nimmo: “I didn’t think so right off the bat.”
And Alonso: “As soon as I hit it, oh yeah, no one is catching that. I’m just so happy right now.”
Alonso, 29, is due to be a free agent after this season. Had the Mets lost, this could have been his last game with the only organization he has ever known.
“It could’ve,” Nimmo said. “It could’ve. And now it’s not.”
Nimmo, enthused, cackled.
“Now it’s not because he did what Big Pete does,” he said. “He hits home runs. I’m just so proud of him.”
After David Peterson, a starter pressed into emergency bullpen duty, pitched a scoreless ninth to clinch the series, the first save of his career, the Mets engaged in their second champagne-soaked celebration in four days.
Manager Carlos Mendoza gave a brief speech before they popped bottles.
“This is who we are, boys,” he said. “We keep having fun, we keep smiling. This is us and we continue to believe.”
Alonso turned the rest of the game into a footnote. Mets lefthander Jose Quintana (six innings) and Milwaukee’s Tobias Myers (five innings) about matched each other’s scoreless efforts. Lindor had the Mets’ only two hits until the ninth.
Jose Butto, the Mets’ first reliever, allowed home runs by Jake Bauers and Sal Frelick on consecutive pitches to open the bottom of the seventh. Edwin Diaz tossed 39 pitches across 1 2⁄3 innings to keep the Mets’ deficit at one.
And then the ninth inning happened. Alonso had been slumping badly, but he was always, as he and Mendoza said often, “one swing away.”
“It’s been hard for him the whole year,” Mendoza said. “It was loud. It was noisy. Zero extra-base hits since I don’t know when. As you watch that game unfold and we go into the ninth inning facing one of the best closers in the game, and I’m looking to my right and I see Pete Alonso, and I was like, this could be it right here.”
On the outskirts of a clubhouse damp with alcohol and filled with cigar smoke, Mets owner Steve Cohen was in awe.
“Great players that come through in the clutch, right?’’ he said. “Just an incredible moment for him, for the team. Blown away. Blown away.
“How this keeps happening, I’ll never know. But it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
