What a night for Pete Alonso and the majority of the 28,097 Mets fans on hand.
What a gut punch — or maybe a jab directed a bit lower — for the Mets.
In yet another surreal scene during a series filled with them, Alonso crushed a milestone, game-tying home run at Citi Field and bathed in the adoration of Mets fans who had just watched him help steal a game from the team they root for.
Alonso’s 300th helped send the game to extra innings. It was another home run — an inside-the-parker from Coby Mayo in the 11th inning — that just about sealed it for the Orioles.
And after all that, the Mets might have felt as bruised as A.J. Ewing, who smacked into the wall and was slow getting up after trying to catch the Mayo drive that led to the 7-5 Mets loss Tuesday in Queens, where the fans showed dramatic swings in allegiance.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Sean Manaea, a close friend of Alonso who nonetheless made clear that he did not love the team’s own crowd supporting the opponent.
In a game the Mets led 3-2 with one out in the ninth, Alonso demolished a high-arcing blast to left off Kodai Senga for history in a ballpark that has seen 124 of those homers, but only one in which Alonso provided a run for the other team.
The swing was less jarring than the reaction: Alonso hurled his bat toward the Orioles dugout and circled the bases to mostly cheers.
“Pete Alonso” cheers broke out until Alonso — in a visiting ballpark, having just tied the game — took a curtain call from a fanbase that does not have much to root for during September of a lost campaign and thus decided to root for the one who got away.
“Everyone in the dugout was saying, ‘Go out there,’ and they were right,” Alonso said. “I appreciate all the support. Especially all the years I’ve been here, all the life I’ve lived here. Obviously appreciate that, and it’s a two-way street.”
The love between fans and player is understandable. The virtual entirety of a ballpark cheering as its team’s closer blows a save is nearly unfathomable.
Senga said the crowd reaction did not bother him solely because it was Alonso — with any other hitter, he said, he would have been irked.
While choosing his words carefully, Manaea did not agree.
“I love him to death, but as a team, as the 2026 Mets — I know we have definitely underperformed,” said Manaea, who threw 5 ¹/₃ effective, two-run innings. “But the guys in here work their ass off every single day. To have that kind of reaction to an opposing player — it could be anybody — is crazy to me.”
As Alonso disappeared into the dugout, those cheers transitioned into a loud, piercing jab toward the person who helped shoo the Polar Bear away: a stadium-wide round of “Fire Stearns.”
After both teams traded runs in the 10th, the Orioles — who are still alive and fighting for a wild-card spot — ran away with the contest against Jonathan Pintaro in the 11th. The big blow was Mayo’s drive chasing Ewing to, and almost through, the center field wall, smacking hard against it and then hitting the warning track dirt. Ewing appeared to be OK, but by the time he and the Mets outfield recovered, Mayo had rounded the bases for a three-run, inside-the-park home run.
For Mets fans hoping for another Alonso moment in Queens and mere drama in a season that no longer has much, the ninth-inning swing offered plenty.
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For the Mets — a group that has been the undercard in its own city, with Jonah Tong hearing boos a day earlier when he walked Alonso rather than serving up a home run — it is hard to imagine the season winding down any worse.
“Pete’s not here,” Manaea said. “The powers that be — whatever that may be — he’s just not here. I know everybody loves him. He’s the man. But he’s not here.
“To see the reaction from the fans like that, I don’t know — it’s just different.”
The scenes in each clubhouse — raucous cheers and beers around the Orioles, while the Mets tried to grasp what just happened — sure were different, too.
“It’s crazy,” Manaea said four times.
