New York Mets slugger Pete Alonso is flirting with a 76-home-run pace in 2023 after a torrid start in which he’s bashed eight home runs in his team’s opening 17 games heading into a three-game set with the Los Angeles Dodgers beginning Monday night.
The intensity of his hot start burns that much brighter over his last 10 games where seven home runs and 12 of his 14 RBI have come — none bigger than in Sunday’s series finale against the Oakland Athletics when he tied the game at three with a solo moonshot shot in the ninth inning.
“Not just on the road, but no matter where I am I want to be able to have a high-quality at-bat, be able to capitalize on pitches in my area,” Alonso told reporters after the game. “I was able to do that in the ninth.”
His manager, Buck Showalter, lauded the 28-year-old’s “consistent mentality,” thanks to his ability to “take the emotion out of an at-bat,” which is paying off quite well early on this season.
Alonso, who leads the majors in home runs (154) and RBI (394) since entering the league in 2019, has never shown this sort of poise at the plate.
While the percentage of pitches he’s seen in the zone has been constant with his career average (both his 2023 and career mark is 43.7%), his zone swing percentage this year is at a career-low 57.9%, according to Baseball Savant. His career average on that metric is 68.8%.
A lot of that has to do with his decision to take the first pitch of an at-bat. While opposing pitches often try to get something in the zone to get ahead on the count early, Alonso’s first-pitch swing percentage is 18.6%. That’s 15% less than last season when he crushed 40 home runs and led the majors with 131 RBI.
On top of that, his chase rate on pitches outside of the zone has plummeted as well. Last year, he swung at pitches out of the zone a career-worst 33.5% of the time. That’s gone down nearly 10% to 22.7% this season.
“Hopefully I can continue to ride this for as long as I can,” Alonso said (h/t SNY). “I feel like I’m seeing the ball really well… I just want to continue capitalizing on pitches in my zone and minimizing chase.”
