PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Pete Alonso pointed a finger at the laptop in front of him. ¡°I win the at-bat right here,¡± he says.
The video on screen is of Alonso in Milwaukee, staring down former Brewers closer Devin Williams in the ninth inning of National League Wild Card Series Game 3. Earlier this spring, Alonso agreed to share his thought process during that plate appearance, which resulted in a three-run homer to advance the Mets to the NL Division Series.
It¡¯s a home run that redefined Alonso¡¯s place in team history, restoring public faith in his abilities and fanning sentiment that the Mets should re-sign him. Two weeks before the start of Spring Training, they did, inking Alonso to a two-year, $54 million contract with an opt-out after this season.
Which is how he wound up in a Clover Park conference room, rewatching the most impactful at-bat of his life.
The leadup
For the first eight innings of Game 3, the Mets were impotent. They had needed to extend the regular season by 26 hours just to qualify for the playoffs. They had taken four flights in nine days, the latter three with no advance notice. Physically, it had taken a toll.
Over the first eight innings of an elimination game, the Mets mustered all of three baserunners. Alonso had contributed one hit -- a single -- in the series and was in a 5-for-41 slump dating to the regular season. He had zero extra-base hits over a stretch of 12 games. In Game 2, Alonso tripped over his bat running out of the box, resulting in an inning-ending double play.
¡°It was just, like, this weird circumstance,¡± he said. ¡°Then as the game progresses, I¡¯ve got an opportunity. ¡ I was doing whatever I could to make it happen.¡±
Despite everything, the Mets were still alive thanks to a pitching staff that had limited Milwaukee¡¯s output to two runs. The top of their lineup was due up in the ninth. Moreover, they were about to face Williams, a reliever they had seen less than 24 hours earlier.
To be clear, the Mets were not clamoring to oppose Williams, one of the game¡¯s top closers. But they didn¡¯t hate their chances.
In a pregame meeting, hitting coach Jeremy Barnes had reviewed tape of the right-hander, imploring his hitters to look for pitches coming out of a specific window. Williams effectively threw only two pitch types: a fastball and a changeup. Both featured significant movement, boring in on right-handed hitters. The only difference was the speed of Williams¡¯ changeup -- about 10 mph slower -- and its fading action.
Mets hitters were instructed to look for balls that appeared off the plate -- outside for righties and inside for lefties. The pitch type mattered less than the window. Because Williams had no breaking balls and essentially never threw his cutter, all his pitches moved similarly.
Alonso continued studying as Williams threw his arsenal at leadoff man Francisco Lindor, who checked his swing on the eighth pitch to draw a walk -- ¡°just an unbelievable at-bat.¡± Mark Vientos followed with a strikeout but Brandon Nimmo singled, putting runners on the corners with one out.
It was Alonso¡¯s turn to bat, and as he waited during a mound visit, Barnes came to speak with him. After the game, the social media influencer Jomboy would post a video suggesting the conversation focused on Williams¡¯ glove. When Williams stuck his hand deeper into it, pulling the glove slightly closer to his head, that would mean he was throwing a fastball. A lower, flatter setup would signal a changeup.
Asked about it, both Alonso and Barnes insisted that pitch tipping was not part of their discussion -- ¡°These things are not as blatant as people think they are,¡± Barnes said. Instead, the hitting coach was reminding Alonso to home in on the window. If a pitch looked outside, Alonso would be able to handle it as it ran back over the plate. If it seemed like a strike, it would end up inside. That was especially true for Williams¡¯ changeup, given its depth.
¡°Lefty slider,¡± was how Barnes described the pitch shape to Alonso. The first baseman asked for clarification.
¡°It¡¯s a changeup,¡± Barnes continued. ¡°It just moves like a lefty slider.¡±
Alonso nodded to his hitting coach and strode to the plate.
Pitch 1: 87 mph changeup, called strike, 0-1 count
¡°This is a recon,¡± Alonso said, indicating that he was taking the whole way.
The changeup, from Williams, was right down the middle. But because Alonso had faced Williams just once in his career, for a two-pitch at-bat 16 months earlier, he wanted to see the changeup shape with his own eyes. It didn¡¯t bother Alonso that Williams¡¯ first pitch to him wound up splitting the center of the zone.
Instead, Alonso took heart in the fact that the ball moved exactly how he expected it to -- exactly how Barnes had said it would.
¡°You can see I¡¯m dug in [after the pitch],¡± Alonso said. ¡°I¡¯m like, ¡®Yeah, uh-huh, that¡¯s it. I got it.¡¯ I feel great.¡±
Pitch 2: 93 mph fastball, ball high, 1-1 count
¡°So watch here, he¡¯s going to try to go up and in with the heater,¡± Alonso said. ¡°That¡¯s too high and that starts a little too much on the plate. Take.¡±
Later in this at-bat, Alonso will guess right on a changeup from Williams. At this juncture, however, he¡¯s all but ignoring pitch type. What he¡¯s looking for is a ball coming out of Williams¡¯ hand in the aforementioned ¡°window,¡± a word Alonso uses dozens of times over the course of a 25-minute interview. He wants a pitch ¡°belly-button high¡± that looks like it¡¯s going to be outside, because he knows those offerings will leak back over the plate.
¡°I¡¯m not even locked in on him,¡± Alonso said. ¡°I¡¯m just locked in on the ball showing up in that area.¡±
Williams¡¯ second pitch wasn¡¯t in the window. The 93 mph heater came out of his hand at too high an angle for Alonso to consider swinging. He kicked some dirt off his cleat and prepared to hit again.
Pitch 3: 94 mph fastball, ball high, 2-1 count
This was, essentially, the same pitch, but Williams missed his spot by an even wider margin. Having already seen a better fastball in the at-bat, Alonso had no trouble laying off it.
¡°Same thing, fastball up and in, ball out of the hand,¡± Alonso said. ¡°Not in the window. Take.¡±
He paused. ¡°And then he¡¯s going to go changeup here.¡±
Pitch 4: 87 mph changeup, inside, 3-1 count
When Williams went back to his best pitch but missed a few inches off the plate, Alonso knew he had won the at-bat. This was a ball designed to tempt Alonso to swing, a changeup that seemed like a strike out of the closer¡¯s hand. It was a devastating pitch featuring more than 20 inches of horizontal break -- a break wider than the strike zone itself. From Alonso¡¯s perspective, it would have looked like a strike on the outside corner, only to tie him up as it careened toward his hands.
For the past three seasons, Williams has led the Majors in arm-side run on changeups, delivering them with an average of more than 19 inches of horizontal break. And the 2-1 pitch to Alonso, even for Williams, was above average.
The fact that Alonso took it altered the batter-pitcher dynamic, essentially proving he was not going to chase. If Williams wanted to retire him, the closer was going to have to venture into the strike zone.
¡°I win the at-bat there because I¡¯m committed to my window,¡± Alonso said. ¡°He¡¯s trying to see, ¡®Is he sitting on heater? Is he sitting on changeup? Okay, he¡¯s not sitting on either. He¡¯s not chasing. He¡¯s not chasing the heater up. He didn¡¯t chase the changeup down and in.¡¯
¡°Then for me, it¡¯s like, ¡®Okay, it¡¯s 3-1. He doesn¡¯t want to walk the bases loaded, he¡¯s going to throw his best pitch for a strike right here.¡¯ I know the window, because I saw it earlier in the at-bat. I saw that pitch. He¡¯s going to throw the same thing.¡±
Pitch 5: 86 mph changeup, home run
Throughout the ninth inning, Williams struggled to find his fastball command. As Alonso mentioned, Williams could ill afford to walk another batter, which would have loaded the bases and put the tying run in scoring position. He had little choice but to attack Alonso, and the obvious way to do so was with another changeup.
¡°He¡¯s going to go down with his strength,¡± Alonso said. ¡°This is the thing -- everyone, at the end of the day, is always going to use their best stuff. When you think of Devin Williams, you think of his changeup.¡±
At this point in the at-bat, Alonso said, ¡°I know everything. I know how he¡¯s going to miss. I know how he¡¯s going to get me out. And then here it is, the changeup for a strike. It shows up in the window, same window as it did in the first pitch. Boom.¡±
Even if it wasn¡¯t obvious to most of those in attendance, Alonso knew immediately that the ball was heading over the fence. He blew a ¡°chef¡¯s kiss¡± celebration while rounding first base. As he hit second, Alonso began to feel the gravity of what he had accomplished.
Five months later, reliving his triumph, he points to the laptop screen again.
¡°In this moment right here,¡± Alonso said, ¡°that¡¯s where it really sets in.¡±
The aftermath
In the Clover Park conference room, as Alonso watches the rest of the inning unfold, he keeps interrupting himself to point out additional instances of Williams throwing pitches from the ¡°window.¡± As an elite athlete, Alonso is trained to ignore external noise and focus on such minute details.
¡°When you get a whole offense doing that, that¡¯s when it gets scary for pitchers,¡± Alonso said.
After Alonso batted, the Mets tacked on one more run to increase their margin for error. Pressed into emergency relief, David Peterson pitched a scoreless bottom of the ninth for the save. Then the Mets celebrated, with Alonso in the middle of it.
Months later, he still struggles to put the magnitude of what he accomplished into words. Even for a franchise with two World Series titles and five pennants, Alonso¡¯s home run was a comet. If it¡¯s not the most significant homer in franchise history, it¡¯s close.
Whether it played a role in the Mets¡¯ decision to re-sign him will always be a matter of speculation; it¡¯s impossible to say what would have happened had Alonso not hit it. But the home run certainly changed his relationship with the fan base. The deep postseason run that followed, Alonso said, also made him a better player. In his inaugural spring press conference, president of baseball operations David Stearns called Alonso a ¡°motivated¡± player who expressed, in no uncertain terms, that he ¡°wants to win a World Series as a Met.¡±
For Alonso, looking forward in that way tends to be easier than looking back. Asked about the legacy of his homer, Alonso responded, ¡°It¡¯s tough to think about, because for me, I¡¯m just trying to win.¡±
As he spoke, the laptop remained open in front of him. Alonso raised his eyes from it.
¡°Hopefully,¡± he added, ¡°I¡¯m here to continue to hit way more of these.¡±