Despite a rough showing at the plate this weekend, Pete Alonso looks to be heading right back towards cruising altitude. The slugging first baseman enjoyed himself a big breakout night at the plate in the Mets 11-4 win over the Miami Marlins on Monday night.
After being bumped down to sixth in the order for the first time in his career, Alonso was on-base in all five of his plate appearances. The struggling youngster was able to put together a perfect 3-for-3 performance including an infield single, a pair of walks, and most notably a pair of solo home runs.
Alonso helped the Mets put this one away early, as he hit his first homer of the game leading off the top the fifth inning. The righty went down and jumped on a first pitch fastball from Josh D. Smith for his fourth home run of the season, increasing the Mets lead to 6-1.
An inning later the Mets kept pilling it on, as Alonso and Robinson Cano went back-to-back for both of their second home runs of the night. Alonso’s shot traveled a total of 429 feet, and left the bat at an exit velocity of 112.9 MPH. This was the Polar Bear’s 22nd career home run with an exit velocity of 110+ MPH. As to Sarah Langs of MLB.com noted, that is more home runs of such exit velocity than anyone else in baseball since the start of last season.
Alonso finally looked like himself at the plate, as he was able to lay off the junk and jump on his pitch. Postgame, Mets manager Luis Rojas praised the young sluggers approach.
“If he can be consistent doing that and bring it back tomorrow, we’re going to see some really good at-bats and some really good results moving forward,” Rojas said.
Over his past ten games, Alonso is hitting .324 with seven extra-base hits, four home runs, 10 RBI’s and a 1.114 OPS. The 2019 National League Rookie of the Year certainly seems to be heading in the right direction. If Alonso could keep this up, it would go a very long way towards helping the Mets offense get things going.
