All-Star Pete Alonso is the saving grace of Mets by Brodie Van Wagenen



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They try to cut costs with baseballs that look thin, with attack areas that seem to be shrinking. They're trying to make less and less home-based circuits because more and more guys who should not be launching these rockets are sending them into orbit.

And yet, the slugger still holds the attention.

So, for Mets fans, there will be Pete Alonso during another bad rotten season. They were 34,247 at Citi Field Sunday afternoon, and they were instantly put to sleep when Zack Wheeler gave up four runs in the first run.

In the sixth inning, he was 6-0 and Aaron Nola scored knee strikes and knee hitters and led a non-hittered attack through 5 ยน / innings when he tried to sting Starrke 3 against Alonso. But Alonso had faced Nola a lot at college, at the SEC, when Alonso was in Florida and Nola at LSU. He took a position in the box, trying to neutralize Nola's equipment.

Three hundred and ninety-six feet later, in the opposite direction, he had it.

"He's just a slugger," Mickey Callaway, Mets manager, shaking his head.

"I was lucky," said Alonso.

The fans? They knew it was another lost afternoon and yet, as the balloon was scratching in the blue July sky, they got up and roared. even the unassailable baseball teams.

He has already been lucky for the 30th time this year, breaking the record of Dave Kingman (43) on most a player's circuits before the All-Star game, setting a rookie record with his 67th and 68th points produced.

It has the power to make viewers want to watch what the Mets have to offer in the second half. Sluggers are different in this way. Adeiny Hechavarria also made a home run Sunday, almost at the same place as Alonso. Nobody buys a ticket in August or September to watch Adeiny Hechavarria give a slap.

Brodie Van Wagenen, of course, is the Mets employee really lucky of what Alonso has achieved in those first 90 games. Alonso is one of the few things he has done correctly on his maiden voyage as GM. He rejected conventional wisdom and brought Alonso north with the Mets rather than acquiring an extra year of salary control by keeping him in Syracuse for a few weeks.

Sunday was a particularly frivolous day for Van Wagenen, two days after being like Al Oerter and turning a Citi Field chair into a discus at a lively meeting with his coaches. His work was everywhere in the sport. Right here at Citi Field, Jay Bruce hit two homers, giving him three for the weekend and four, in total, against the Mets so far. So there was that.

Four home runs – as in the total number of Robinson Cano in his first 242 games without defeat as Met. Cano also failed to capture a lazy pop-up of Scott Kingery's stick early in the first run – in all fairness, Juan Lagares would probably have been able to bail him out at the game, but that's also the kind of game Cano was doing before. in his days of salad. So there was that.

In Cleveland, the two pillars of the Cano agreement – Justin Dunn and Jarred Kelenic – played at night at the Futures Game and charmed a group of local scribes during the day with their coolness and candor. In Tampa, Arnaud's Travis – scrapped by Van Wagenen as an empty beer can after 25 games with plates this year, continued his tour against the Yankees by getting another shot, scoring another run and by making an awesome defensive game first. So there was that.

And as a report revealed that the Mets had "asked questions" about Joe Girardi, Van Wagenen's favorite Mickey Callaway was still the manager of the Mets and he was still churning up some optimistic gems after the match, as the Mets fell at 40-50. (One and a half game better than last year at the break [39-52]! Twice and a half better than 2017 [39-53]! Progress!).

"I think we can still try our luck," Callaway said.

So there was that.

Above all, there is Alonso, the only thing that Van Wagenen has touched and that did not turn into rust (unless you did not count him trading Jeff McNeil with Dunn and Kelenic at this point Van Wagenen probably included it in his own "benefits" list.) There is the possibility that more bullets fill the sky, more bullets fill the stands, more empty nights otherwise have a hint of d & rsquo; Hope thanks to a slugger dubbed Polar Bear.

This is what the Mets have planned for the beginning of the second period, when they invade Miami and they were dismissed by the three university teams in eastern Newfoundland, they will certainly urge the Marlins to "come to get us". the JV trophy and fourth place.

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