Pete Alonso, Jared Young homer to lead Mets past White Sox for fourth straight win
The Mets' Pete Alonso reacts after hitting a two-run home run in the first inning against the Chicago White Sox at Citi Field on Tuesday. Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
Jared Young was drafted in 2017 and didn’t make his MLB debut until 2022.
He’s played 654 minor-league games, and just 26 major-league ones, and last year, in an effort to resurrect a career that had yet to truly begin, he went overseas to play in Korea. And, in his three previous starts since being called up from Triple-A Syracuse Saturday, Young, 29, had yet to collect a hit.
Which is to say, Young knows a little something about waiting.
Tuesday, the wait was over.
Young collected his first hit of the season, and his first homer since 2023, as the Mets pushed aside the White Sox, 6-4, at Citi Field for their fourth win in a row.
Young and Pete Alonso both hit two-run homers in the four-run first, and Tylor Megill was unsteady but adequate against an offense with the second-lowest batting average in baseball. And all of that was good enough to withstand a two-run White Sox rally in the seventh to draw within 1. The Mets scored an insurance run on Franciso Lindor’s RBI single in the eighth.
“It’s the best league in the world and you’ve got to play your best to be here and have success here, but I’m glad to be back and that one felt good,” said Young, who also doubled in the third for the first multiple extra-base hit game of his career. It’s about “believing in yourself. If you believe in yourself and believe in the player that you are, I feel like it takes care of a lot of things. There’s going to be a lot of ups and downs in any career…but I feel like the more you believe in yourself, you can get to where you want to go.”
And though the White Sox hit first, the Mets hit harder.
The White Sox scored two against Megill in the first on Michael Vargas’ homer, but though bizarre baseball bit the Mets in the bottom of the inning, those old-fashioned bombs soothed the burn.
Brandon Nimmo singled with one out and Juan Soto hit a 109.9-mph laser to center field that was either trapped or caught by Michael A. Taylor – “trapped or caught” because the second-base umpire didn’t seem to signal anything, and neither Nimmo nor Soto knew what was going on. Nimmo hustled and passed second, but after thinking it was a catch, he ran back to first – and by an advancing Soto. It turned out Taylor had trapped it, but Soto was out for passing the baserunner.
No matter, said Alonso and Young.
Alonso, who on Sunday snapped a career-high 16-game homerless streak, blasted Jonathan Cannon’s 1-and-1 sinker 419-feet to right for his 11th homer of the year to tie the game at 2. Brett Baty followed with a single, and then came Young's homer, which made it 4-2.
With that, Young rewarded Carlos Mendoza’s faith in him. Though he’d yet to get a hit, Mendoza faithfully put him in the lineup at DH for four straight games, saying he believed in the quality of Young’s at bats, and how hard he was hitting the ball.
“It seems like he’s always in hitter’s counts,” Mendoza said. “He’s getting an opportunity. He’s back in the big leagues after a lot of grinding…We’re giving him a chance and he’s taking advantage of it. I like that at bats and it was good to see him get some results.”
The Mets tacked on another run in the third, when Baty and Young hit a single and a double to put runners on the corners for Jeff McNeil, whose sacrifice fly to right gave the Mets the three-run advantage. Cannon allowed five runs on nine hits with a walk and four strikeouts.
The White Sox brought the go-ahead run to the plate against a shaky Megill in the sixth after Megill gave up a leadoff single and then issued a pair of two-out walks. For the second night in a row, though, Mendoza turned to Jose Butto with the bases loaded, and for the second night in a row, he delivered, getting Lenyn Sosa to sky out to center on the first pitch he saw, a knee-high slider.
Megill allowed two runs on four hits with four walks and six strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings.
Butto, though, got into trouble in the seventh, when, with runners on the corners and two outs, a passed ball scored Chase Meidroth. Vargas followed with a double off the wall in left to draw the White Sox to within 5-4. That brought in Jose Castillo, who hit Andrew Benintendi but got Edgar Quero to strike out swinging.
McNeil and Alvarez each hit one-out singles in the eighth, and Lindor singled in pinch-runner Luisangel Acuna to make it 6-4. Reed Garrett got the final four outs for the save.
Of Young, Alonso said it was “great for him and great for us…”
“You really got to see what he was able to do,” he said. “He’s not only a great performer, but the couple days he’s been here, he’s been a great teammate.”
It might’ve taken awhile, but it appeared to be worth the wait.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
