Starts like these don’t get much better in Queens, which makes Pete Alonso’s opening of the 2022 season some story.
The New York Mets slugger torpedoed his 11th home run of the season — a three-run shot — during Monday night’s 13-3 victory over the San Francisco Giants.
It improved the Mets’ record to 29-15 — the first time since 2015 that they sat 14 games over .500 — while Alonso tied the National League lead with his 11th round-tripper.
His 40 RBI on the season ranks second in Major League Baseball only to Jose Ramirez of the Cleveland Guardians behind a slash line of .288/.356/.524 (.990 OPS).
“What he’s doing is special,” Jeff McNeil, who is having quite a start to his season as well, said (h/t MLB.com). “It’s fun to watch him take at-bats every single night, putting together great ABs, hitting the ball hard, and just driving in a ton of runs for this team. He’s been pretty amazing.”
But just how special has this start been in terms of it coming from a Met?
Well, such a blend of power and batting in runs hasn’t really been seen before.
No Mets player that has hit 11 home runs or more in his first 44 games of a season has recorded 40 RBI. Only Bernard Gilkey in 1996 hit the 40 RBI mark by his 44th game of the season and he had 10 round-trippers at that point.
“It feels great,” Alonso said last week. “I take pride in driving guys in. That’s one of the things I really love doing and helping my team win.”
“To do it consistently is hard,” Mets manager Buck Showalter added. “When everybody knows what you’re capable of and you’re still doing it. Pete loves to play. He likes competing. He’s a consistent personality every day.”
While it would be surprising to see Alonso continuing to play in every game this season — only John Olerud in 1999 and Felix Millan in 1975 have played in all 162 games in a single season — his 2022 pace right now will land him upon one of the franchise’s all-time best.
Alonso is on pace to hit 41 home runs, which would rank tied for second only behind his rookie season record of 53 with 147 RBI, which is 23 more than Mike Piazza (1999) and David Wright’s (2008) franchise record of 124.
“It doesn’t surprise us at all what Pete’s doing,” third baseman J.D. Davis said. “It’s cool, vintage Pete and he’s getting locked in, as well, so it’s going to be fun to watch him get things going.”
