Pete Alonso could not have written it up any better if he wanted to.
In what could have been his final at-bat as a member of the New York Mets with free agency looming, the slugging first baseman picked his team up off the canvas in their last turn at-bat down 2-0 in Game 3 of the National League Wild Card Series and smacked a three-run home run the other way in the top of the ninth inning to lift his side to a 4-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers to punch their ticket to the NLDS against the Philadelphia Phillies.
“This is something you practice in the backyard as a kid,” Alonso said. “I’m just happy to come through for the boys. We’ve worked really hard all year, I had some great at-bats in front of me, and I’m really happy I got to come through for the team right there.”
The Mets had been held to just two hits, both from Francisco Lindor, entering the ninth inning down 2-0 after back-to-back home runs from Milwaukee’s Jake Bauers and Sal Frelick off deliver Jose Butto. But against Brewers reliever Gavin Williams, Lindor led the inning off with a walk before Brandon Nimmo singled with one out to put runners at the corners.
Working the count to 3-1, Alonso, who had been 0-for-3 and had not hit a home run since Sept. 19, jumped on an outside changeup and sent it 367 feet into the right-field seats.
“I was just looking out over the middle of the plate, just looking for something to hit hard and forward,” Alonso said. “…Such a special effort all series. We worked so hard all year to get to this point and I’m so happy I got to contribute.”
The Mets added an insurance run when Jesse Winker was hit by a pitch and then stole second. Starling Marte drove him home with a two-out single to right.
All six runs Offense on both sides was limited most of the evening because of the pitcher’s duel that broke out between Milwaukee’s Tobias Myers and New York’s Jose Quintana.
Myers, a rookie, went five shutout innings and allowed just two hits — both to Francisco Lindor — with five strikeouts and no walks.
Quintana matched every zero of Myers, then some. The veteran southpaw kept the Brewers off the board through six innings, allowing five strikeouts and a walk.
He became the first Mets starting pitcher since Noah Syndergaard in the 2016 Wild Card Game against the San Francisco Giants to go at least six shutout innings in a postseason game.
“I’m really proud of this,” Quintana said. “I remember [Mendoza] and [pitching coach Jeremy Hefner] told me, hey, at some point, you’ll throw in an elimination game. Just be ready. I always feel ready. This is the postseason, there are some ups and downs sometimes, but it’s amazing that we’re going to the second round… It’s amazing to be part of this.”
But Quintana’s fate appeared as though it would be the same as Syndergaard’s eight years ago as the bullpen initially came up empty.
Bauers, pinch-hitting for Rhys Hoskins, led off the bottom of the seventh inning with the game’s opening run — taking a full-count changeup from Butto that sat middle-middle over the right-field wall.
On the very next pitch, Butto was taken out of the yard by Frelick, which was also a no-doubter into the right-field seats, to put the Mets in a 2-0 hole.
Following their dramatic comeback and after Edwin Diaz was used for 1.2 innings through the seventh and eighth innings, starting pitcher David Peterson closed it out for the Mets, coaxing a game-ending double play by Brice Turang that was turned by Lindor.
“We did it,” Lindor told SNY after the game. “We were able to look each other in the eye and say, ‘Let’s go, let’s keep on climbing’… we finished the job. Now we have to go to the next series and do it again.”
