Season Of Nightmares For Mets Delves Into Deeper, Darker Depths
Pete Alonso's trip to the IL serves as yet another crushing blow
The New York Mets do not deserve nice or good things this year.
Not even a day removed from the latest in a long-line of gut-punching losses - this time to the Atlanta Braves in extra-innings - the not so Amazin’ Mets got some pretty bad news on one of their most consistent performers.
Pete Alonso - who has done his best to carry this underperforming, fundamentally flawed team on his back through the first quarter plus of the 2023 season - has hit the IL.
The slugger took a 97 mph Charlie Morton fastball off his left wrist in the first inning against the Braves on Wednesday. He returned to New York on Thursday in order to undergo X-Rays, which all came back negative.
However, after going through additional tests, the Mets confirmed on Friday afternoon that Alonso has been diagnosed with a bone bruise and a sprain of his left wrist. As such, he’s expected to miss around 3-4 weeks and we probably won’t see him back crushing balls until after the All-Star break.
Alonso has now been placed on the Injured List with Luis Guillorme replacing him on the roster.
It is an absolute body blow for the Mets to try and absorb, and it acts as the latest depressing moment in a season full of them.
While there were significantly and potentially more terrifying outcomes, of course, losing Alonso for any stretch of time will be tough to recover from for a Mets team that can’t seem to get out of their own way in 2023.
Despite owning the highest payroll in all of baseball - a whopping $345,474,042 - the Mets have consistently failed to scale the heights they were expected to this year.
The polite way would be to state that they’ve underachieved. Some would say they have stunk the place out. Others, who may have run out of patience and may be inclined to be a little blunt, would say that the Mets have been an absolute dumpster fire from the get-go.
For the second straight year under General Manager Billy Eppler and Manager Buck Showalter, the offense has been a virtual no-show and the bats have disappeared more than a peak-of-his-powers Harry Houdini. The starting rotation which, given the way it was put together, was always going to be boom or bust, has collapsed like a cheap pack of cards. What was meant to be a juggernaut of a two-headed monster at the front of the rotation has failed to deliver and then some. Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, when healthy - and that’s been a big if - have performed way, way, way below of the levels they are capable of. To say they haven’t lived up to the back of their baseball card would be an understatement of epic proportions. And the bullpen misses Edwin Díaz despite the stellar efforts of David Robertson, who has stepped up and done a great job as the closer so far this year.
Too many of the team’s big-hitters such as Francisco Lindor, Jeff McNeil and Starling Marte have been far too inconsistent at the plate and have disappeared in big spots. The Mets, once again, are getting no production from the DH spot with Daniel Vogelbach’s bat vanishing from the planet, let alone going cold. The supposed slugger is mired in an all-time slump, hitting .203/.343/.297 with a .639 OPS with no home runs in his last 19 games. He has two homers all year.
Heck, the Mets have even done a bad job of handling their prospects this year, being reluctant to take the leash off of phenom catcher Francisco Álvarez while also wasting so much time in calling up Brett Baty and Mark Vientos, despite the fact both were tearing the cover off the ball in the minors. There’s also now a compelling case to be made for Ronny Mauricio to be called-up with Alonso on the IL given that he’s been raking at Triple-A. This team could do with an offensive spark after all.
But, even when the ‘Baby Mets’ have delivered, it hasn’t been enough. The case in point being Thursday night’s insanely bad choke job against the Braves. Despite the fact Álvarez hit two home runs and the Mets led 10-6 at the top of the sixth inning, this fragile, underperforming team collapsed like a cheap pack of cards on their way to losing 13-10 in extra innings.
As a result, the class of 2023 became the first team in franchise history to drop three straight games that they led in by at least three runs in each game. The embarrassing capitulation also snapped a lengthy streak in which the Mets had won 122 consecutive games in which they held a lead after eight innings.
So, there you have it, the 2023 New York Mets are now historically bad.
And that brings us back to Pete Alonso.
With the Mets now 30-33 and 8.5 games back behind the Braves, losing Alonso for possibly a month is an absolute backbreaker for this team. It is a physical and mental blow.
Alonso is very much the heartbeat of that clubhouse and, while he is somewhat stuck in the large shadow of Aaron Judge when it comes to New York baseball, he had been hitting at elite levels in 2023.
He leads all of MLB in homers with 22. He has driven in 49 RBIs and he was slashing .231/.326/.546 with a .872 OPS and a OPS+ of 139 prior to going down hurt. Alonso has been responsible for almost all of the Mets’ power production in 2023, accounting for 29 percent of the team’s homers and 18 percent of their RBIs. He was also the first player in the National League to reach 49 RBIs.
I mean, Francisco Álvarez and Francisco Lindor, who are tied for the second most home runs on the Mets, have combined for the same amount of long balls as Alonso has hit on his own. That should tell you everything you need to know about this offense outside of its most potent power hitter.
Alonso was on pace for 57 homers prior to getting hurt on Wednesday, and all he has done since entering Major League Baseball is hit dingers. He’s hit 168 for his career already, including a career-high 53 in his rookie year. The two-time All-Star has also been a reliable force for the Mets outside of his power. He’s appeared in 97.4 percent of the Mets’ games since making his Major League debut in 2019. He’s incredibly durable and his production won’t be easily replaced, if at all, for the next month or so.
This is the kind of pure power the Mets will be missing for the next month:
It’s also the slew of intangibles that Alonso brings to the table. He’s the straw that stirs the drink for this Mets offense. He’s the pulsing heartbeat, the leader, the high-character guy and a player that can shift the momentum of an entire game with one lethal swing of the bat.
Alonso has been a clutch player for this Mets team and not having his will to win in the lineup for the next few weeks is going to be a tough hill to climb. He has been their most consistent offensive threat and, now that he is gone for the moment, the immediate picture looks bleak.
Also, on a side note, this injury all but takes Alonso out of the running to take part in the Home Run Derby at the 2023 All-Star Game in Seattle. That sucks coconuts because there’s very few things as fun in life as watching Alonso hit absolute moonshot after moonshot.
The guy was born to destroy baseballs with awe-inspiring ease.
This has been an absolute slog of a season for the Mets so far, with more bumps in the road than euphoric highs. It has been brutally tough to watch at times and Alonso going on the IL is just the latest in a long line of kicks to the cubes this fading contender has taken already. And we’ve not even made it to July yet.
Please make it stop.
