What they're saying about Gators great Pete Alonso

Florida Gators great Pete Alonso is the toast of New York.

Thursday night, Alonso’s three-run homer in the ninth inning helped propel the New York Mets to a 4-2 win over Milwaukee and clinch the NL Wild Card Series. For the Mets, it was the first playoff series win since 2015. For Alonso, it probably was the biggest hit in his six seasons with the team.

Here’s what they were saying about Pete following his epic blast …

*”Pete Alonso reminded us all again how fickle baseball can be, how one swing can change a season, a team, a legacy and maybe even the path of one’s whole career.

“Pete! Pete! Pete!” the folks yelled as Alonso negotiated the spartan concourse in the bowels of American Family Field on his way to the post-game presser, a celebration unto itself. These were of course all close friends and family waiting outside the victorious clubhouse. But they may as well have been everyday Mets fans, whose opinions and outlook regarding the slugging but slumping Met surely turned on one pitch, one swing and one point in time.” — Jon Herman, New York Post

PETE ALONSO DINGER WITH THE SEASON ON THE LINE 💥

METS GO UP 3-2 IN THE 9TH 😱 pic.twitter.com/62gGZMWN9U

— ESPN (@espn) October 4, 2024

*”For some time, the Mets needed Alonso to come through. Big time. His walk year had been devoid of special moments. But club officials always said the same thing, that, with his power, he could change a game in an instant. Still, his last extra-base hit was Sept. 19. Before the home run, Alonso was 0-for-3 with a strikeout in the seventh inning. No matter. He still believed.” — Will Sammon, The Athletic

*”The story of how the pumpkin — and its carved-up Jack O’Lantern version — became a symbol of Halloween is connected to Irish folklore, with people carving turnips to ward off the devil.

The story of how Pete Alonso and the Mets turned to the humble pumpkin as a symbol to rally around, looking to the autumnal orb as harbinger of good fortune, is a lot more simple: Alonso picked up the gourd at a nearby Milwaukee pumpkin patch ahead of the team’s Wild Card series against the Brewers.

Whether it was simply coincidence or it was the undeniable power of the decorative gourd that inspired Alonso to break out of his postseason slump and deliver a once-in-a-lifetime game-winning three-run home run on Thursday night to send the Mets to the NLDS, we’ll never know.

“‘It’s the playoff pumpkin,'” Alonso explained.” — Michael Claire MLB.com

*”Was this how it was going to end for Pete Alonso in his Mets tenure? With free agency waiting for him whenever the Mets season ends, Alonso came to the plate in the ninth inning of an elimination game with his team trailing 2-0. He was facing one of the best closers in baseball in Devin Williams of the Brewers. 

A double play would end the season and mean Alonso just went 1 for 9 in the playoffs in his last Mets series before he potentially signed a contract elsewhere. A strikeout would’ve been pretty bad and likely helped end the season as well. 

Instead, the man who goes by the moniker “Polar Bear” muscled up with a twig in his paws and changed everything.” — Matt Snyder, CBS Sports

*”Pete Alonso had yet to have a signature moment in the postseason. After six years with the only big league team he had ever known, it looked as though the Polar Bear was about to go out with a whimper.

Instead, he sent the Mets to the NLDS with a bang.

With the Brewers up, 2-0, in the ninth inning, Alonso came up to the plate to face closer Devin Williams with runners on the corners and one out. Williams threw strike 1 on the first pitch, before throwing three straight balls. On 3-1, Alonso lined a changeup to right field that just barely cleared the fence for the biggest home run of his career.” — Abbey Mastrocco, NY Daily news

*”Leave sports talk to the experts? No, leave it to the caller who predicted Pete Alonso’s game-winning three-run homer hours before it happened.

While most New York Mets fans gave up on Alonso heading into their winner take all Game 3 against the Milwaukee Brewers Thursday night, Claude didn’t. Hours before the first pitch in Game 3 of their Wild Card matchup, Claude called ESPN New York’s The Michael Kay Show with a prediction.

“I’m rooting for Pete Alonso to hit a game-winning three-run homer tonight,” Claude told The Kay Show. “But on his way to first base, he’s gonna let off some weird yelp or scream or something extremely awkward that’s gonna put a shadow over his achievement, but it would be great for him to do that.”” — Brandon Contes, Awful Announcing

*”No star player this century has understood and embodied the Mets experience quicker than Pete Alonso, who emerged as a middle-of-the-order force and locker room leader as a rookie in 2019 while also embracing the idea of goofily enjoying the moment that is unique to Mets fans.

And as he stepped to the plate for the Mets for the 3,631st and possibly final time at 9:41 PM EST Thursday night, he was in danger of exiting without a signature postseason moment.

Not anymore.

Alonso’s 228th big league homer was his most dramatic, a three-run shot that sparked a four-run ninth inning and lifted the Mets past the Brewers, 4-2, and into the NL Division Series against the rival Phillies.” — Jerry Beach, Forbes