Pete Alonso has certainly made himself familiar with the right-field stands this postseason.
Entering NLDS Game 4 on Wednesday night, the righty-swinging Mets slugger had sent each of his three home runs in these playoffs to the opposite field, adding an element to his game that wasn’t particularly prominent during the regular season.
“I’m just trying to get a pitch I can handle and just put a good swing on it and stay within myself,” Alonso said Tuesday after clubbing a solo shot against the Phillies’ Aaron Nola in the Mets’ Game 3 win.
“Wherever it goes out, if it does, I’m just happy it does,” he said. “It’s just a product of a good swing, and that pitch [from Nola] was away, so I’m really glad. If I’m hitting balls the other way, it’s typically a good sign.”
Tuesday night’s blast came five days after Alonso struck an instant-classic, game-winning home run in Game 3 of the Wild Card round that just cleared the right-field wall at Milwaukee’s American Family Field.
Alonso also sent a 370-foot home run the opposite way in the Mets’ NLDS Game 2 loss in Philadelphia.
The right-field drives warranted extra attention considering Alonso hit only three of his first 33 home runs in the regular season (9%) to the opposite field.
His 34th and final regular-season home run was an opposite-field blast, meaning Alonso entered Wednesday with four consecutive homers that went out to right.
“When he’s on time, it allows him to make better swing decisions,” manager Carlos Mendoza said Wednesday. “It’s gonna allow him to get the barrel on the ball, and when he does that, we know he’s one of the best power hitters in the game.
“It doesn’t matter how they pitch him because he’s got that ability,” Mendoza continued. “Yesterday, he took that ball and went the other way, and off of the bat, [we knew] that ball was gone. He’s a dangerous hitter, but I think it starts with his timing.”
Through six MLB seasons, Alonso owns a pull percentage of 43.8% on batted balls, compared to an opposite-field rate of 23.8%. Twenty-three of Alonso’s 226 career home runs went out to right field, according to MLB’s Statcast.
But Alonso possesses prodigious power the other way, as evidenced by his 385-foot homer against Nola that caromed off of the second deck at Citi Field.
“I hit my ball pretty hard and it didn’t go out, and then [Alonso] comes in and hits an oppo home run, so I was like, ‘Well, I guess that’s how you do it,’” said Francisco Lindor, who sent a 387-foot flyout into center field in the first inning.
“Pete’s Pete. He’s special. He’s one of the better power hitters in the game that we have had in a while.”
The home-run heroics continue to fuel a storybook postseason for Alonso, an impending free agent whose long-term future with the Mets remains the subject of widespread scrutiny.
He described his go-ahead home run in last week’s winner-take-all Game 3 in Milwaukee as the “coolest baseball moment I’ve had in my career.” After that game, Alonso showed off the “playoff pumpkin,” which he picked at a Milwaukee gourd and has since become the Mets’ latest unlikely good luck charm.
A sold-out crowd chanted “Pete A-lon-so” throughout Tuesday night’s game, just like it did during the Mets’ regular-season home finale on Sept. 22. At that time, it was unclear if the first baseman would ever play at Citi Field in a Mets uniform again.
But the Mets remain on a magical run, and that’s more than enough to energize Alonso.
“As soon as the game’s done, I’m ready for another one,” Alonso said before Wednesday’s NLDS Game 4. “Last night, all the games in Milwaukee, it was like I could play another one, just because — yes, it’s high-pressure situations — but this is the most fun baseball I’ve ever played in my life. There’s nothing like this.”
