299, and a ballpark that used to be his
Pete Alonso walks into Citi Field on Monday night one swing away from 300 career home runs. The complication: he will be in an Orioles uniform, in the visitors’ dugout, in the ballpark where he spent every one of his first six major league seasons.
He hit No. 299 on Saturday, in a 7-3 loss to Toronto. Sunday brought no fireworks, only a fifth-inning single that pushed him to 100 RBIs, the most in the American League. That is his fifth 100-RBI season since he debuted in 2019, more than any other player in baseball over that stretch. San Francisco’s Rafael Devers sits two RBIs short of matching him.
Baltimore sends Brandon Young (9-4, 3.71 ERA) to the mound against Mets right-hander Jonah Tong (2-1, 4.80) in the opener of a three-game interleague series.
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A free agency nobody in Queens contested
The Mets never made Alonso a formal offer last winter. Six seasons in New York. A major league-leading 1,158 games played since 2019. Thirty-five homers this year, fourth in the AL. Queens let the conversation end before it started, and Alonso signed with Baltimore in December, five years, a reported $155 million.
“Both the Orioles as an organization and myself, I feel like we align and fit perfectly,” Alonso said back in May, when Baltimore visited Yankee Stadium. “When you have something good, you focus on it.”
Those 35 homers make this the seventh 30-homer season of his career, tied with Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber for the most in the majors since 2019.
Two teams with nothing left to chase
The homecoming arrives with the stakes stripped out. Baltimore lost 8-1 in Toronto on Sunday and sits 72-78, four games behind Cleveland for the last American League wild-card spot with 12 to play.
“We can moan and groan and complain about where we’re at, but we dug ourselves this hole,” Orioles pitcher Trevor Rogers said. “We have to dig ourselves out of it.”
The Mets (69-80) are one loss from elimination, and they lost the Subway Series finale 2-0 to the Yankees on Sunday. They have played spoiler well since the trade deadline, though. New York is 22-14 since August 3, with series wins over Cleveland, San Diego, Tampa Bay and Miami.
One more detail for Monday night: Francisco Lindor, Alonso’s teammate for four years, is also stuck on 299.
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