Pete Alonso's new HR Derby pitcher: Youth coach
New York Mets' Pete Alonso connects for a two-run home run against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Credit: AP/Ross D. Franklin
SAN DIEGO — Five hours before the Mets played the Padres on Friday, Pete Alonso was on the field at Petco Park for an unusual but important task: a batting-practice session with a coach from his childhood, Mike Friedlein, who will be his personal pitcher in the Home Run Derby on Monday.
That arrangement is part of the promise Alonso made to Friedlein a decade and a half ago, when Friedlein ran a Tampa-area travel team Alonso played for as a middle-schooler. If he ever participated in the Derby, the adolescent Alonso told his coach, he would choose Friedlein as his partner.
“We were just joking around [back then],” Alonso recalled Friday. “It was just a daydreamy- type thing as a young kid. Obviously, Mike was like, yeah, all right, whatever. Hopefully it happens and hopefully we get to do it one day.
“Lo and behold, after a few times, I’ve had success and now, well, let’s do it. I just wanted to keep good on a promise I made a long while ago.”
Friedlein has remained “a really good family friend” in the years since, Alonso said, and came to San Diego for the weekend ahead of the real thing — or “The Big Dance,” as Alonso called it.
For Alonso, who has become something of a face of the Home Run Derby, this will be his fourth time participating. He won it on consecutive occasions in 2019 and 2021 — the 2020 iteration was canceled because of the pandemic — but was dethroned last year.
Ousting him in the semifinals: Mariners star Julio Rodriguez, who will be Alonso’s first-round opponent in Seattle this time.
The other relevant Mariners connection: Alonso is going for his third win, which would tie the most ever. The record-holder is Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr., a Seattle icon. Griffey will be on hand during All-Star goings-on as an ambassador for the event.
Alonso always has been deliberate in deciding on his pitchers. For his Derby debut, in Cleveland, he chose his cousin, Derek Morgan, an Ohio native. The next time, he went with Dave Jauss, then the Mets’ bench coach and someone Alonso said he considers “a part of my baseball family.” Alonso brought Jauss, by then with the Nationals, back for his three-peat bid last year.
Now it is Friedlein’s turn. Alonso tends to take the homer-hitting contest seriously, and that was evident in his work with his old coach — the first time they got together for BP since Alonso’s minor-league days, he said. After Friedlein shook off some rust in the first practice round, Alonso consistently planted pitches over the centerfield and especially the leftfield walls.
Alonso likes the pitches in “the money zone,” he said, over the middle of the plate and just a tad up.
When Friedlein put the ball where Alonso wanted it — like the one that resulted in a ball blasting off the third deck of the Western Metal Supply Co. building in the leftfield corner — Alonso would offer encouragement: “Stay right there, Mike.”
Manager Buck Showalter said of their practice: “You don’t want to be experimenting when that thing [the Derby] takes place.”
Baty still out
Twenty-four hours after Showalter said Brett Baty’s sore left hamstring would resolve itself in about 24 hours, the rookie third baseman was out of the lineup again Friday for the series opener against the Padres.
Baty was “close” to a return, though, according to Showalter, who noted that he expects him to play at some point over the weekend.
Showalter said the Mets considered putting Baty on the 10-day injured list — four of those days will be the All-Star break next week — but that would require him to miss the first two games of the second half, too, so they have refrained.
Extra bases
The Mets pushed Jose Quintana’s last rehab start from Friday to Saturday. He’ll get the ball for Triple-A Syracuse . . . With the Cubs’ Dansby Swanson pulling out of the All-Star Game, MLB selected the Diamondbacks’ Geraldo Perdomo as a replacement instead of Francisco Lindor. That was based on player balloting, according to The Athletic, citing the league. Lindor has more homers and RBIs than Perdomo, but Perdomo has a much higher average and on-base percentage. “I’m not going to evaluate somebody else’s players,” said Showalter, who brought up the topic unsolicited. “I know our guy is having a very worthy [season]. So are other people.” . . . Among the new features in the visitors’ clubhouse at Petco Park: an arcade-style Golden Tee Golf video game. “I enjoyed,” said Jeff McNeil, noted golfer.
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.
