They didn’t bat No.2/No. 3 in the lineup but even so, Binghamton Rumble Pony fans watching the Mets play on television Saturday in Washington may have experienced a feeling of deja vu.
That’s because New York Met neophytes Jeff McNeil and Pete Alonso were tearing up the Washington pitchers at Nationals Park. Just one year ago, the hard hitting duo were flashing their offensive muscles at NYSEG Stadium in Binghamton. The slugging tandem’s back-to-back prowess in the Pony lineup was like nothing Binghamton baseball fans had experienced before elevating McNeil and Alonso to the top of almost every Eastern League offensive category. Saturday’s explosive batting display by the Met youngsters comes as no surprise to Rumble Pony fans.
Even the Binghamton April cold and snow could not deter Alonso and McNeil last spring. In fact, Alonso’s April production was almost other worldly.
The big first baseman lead the Eastern League in batting hitting .408 with seven doubles, seven home runs and 19 RBI in the first month of the 2018 season. Alonso would cool down during the month of May, but only by a little. When the big guy and McNeil were elevated to Triple-A Las Vegas in early June, Alonso was still batting .311 with a league leading 15 homers and 52 RBI.
Alonso’s partner in crime, McNeil was also wreaking havoc on Eastern League pitchers. It took the Rumble Pony second baseman a bit longer than Alonso to get his offensive game in full stride.
McNeil batted .279 with four homers in the first month of the season in Binghamton, but turned in a torrid May batting .340 while doubling his April home run totals. McNeil sizzled over 13 games for Binghamton in June before his Triple-A call-up, batting .362 and adding two more homers.
McNeil’s combined batting totals for Binghamton last spring, a batting average of .327, 16 doubles, 14 HR and 43 RBI. The kid continued to rake in Las Vegas batting .368 over 18 games before being summoned to the ‘Big Team’ in Flushing where the new Met second baseman batter .329 over 63 games to chose a phenomenal year.
Combined, Alonso and McNeil hit 29 homers and knocked in 95 runs in two-and-a-half months in Binghamton last spring.
If the first two games of the 2019 season are any indicator, it looks like it’s full steam ahead for the Mets dynamic duo, McNeil had four hits on Saturday in Washington, the fourth four hit game of his short major league career. Alonso had one less hit than McNeil, but blasted two doubles, one that was estimated to leave the bat with the highest exit velocity of any ball hit by a Met batter since that statistic has been taken. Both Alonso and McNeil drove in two runs against National pitchers on Saturday.
Saturday’s batting prowess by the Mets ‘Dynamic Duo’ had to take Rumble Pony fans back to a similar baseball beginning last year. It’s only two games but even so the duo’s explosive offensive production was getting started all over again in 2019.
