Polar Bear's poke gives Mets fans shades of 1986
Mike Lupica
@MikeLupicaThere have been two Mets teams in their history to win the World Series. Of course one was the 1969 team, known as the Miracle Mets, because in their first season, back in ’62, they’d lost almost as many games as the White Sox just did. Then there were the ’86 Mets, who gave their fans the single most famous game the Mets have ever played, Game 6 of the ’86 Series, two outs and nobody on against the Red Sox in the bottom of the 10th and about to lose the Series and their season until they didn’t.
Last night in Milwaukee, it was a Wild Card Series and not the World Series, but the ’24 Mets were both of those teams. They gave their fans what felt like a baseball miracle. And they gave them the greatest October moment they’ve had since ’86.
It was just the top of the ninth against the Brewers this time, and not the bottom of the 10th, when Pete Alonso brought his team from 0-2 down to 3-2 ahead with the most famous home run swing any Met has ever made, one even bigger than the one Francisco Lindor made on Monday against the Braves to officially put the Mets into the tournament.
Lindor won the Mets a trip to Milwaukee. Alonso won them a trip to Philadelphia. Not for a World Series. For a Division Series. It just feels like more right now to them and to their fans, after as, well, Amazin’ a week as any Mets team has ever had, all the way back to 1969.
“It’s really a special moment,” Alonso said after what could have been his final at-bat as a Met if he’d made an out, since he becomes a free agent after this season is over.
It was for Alonso, and for Lindor, who scored ahead of him and who’d had the Mets only two hits in this game heading into the ninth inning. It was for Carlos Mendoza, who ought to be the National League Manager of the Year. Mendoza brought in his closer, Edwin Diaz, to hold the Brewers at 2-0 in the seventh and eighth, then brought in David Peterson, who’d started and won a game last Sunday in this same ballpark against the Brewers, to close. Lindor walked after a terrific at-bat to start the ninth. With one out, Brandon Nimmo singled.
By now, everybody who loves baseball knows the rest, mostly about Alonso’s shot heard ‘round the Mets world.
“Tonight was my turn,” Alonso said. “Tomorrow will be someone else’s.”
The Mets haven’t won a World Series since 1986, though they’ve been back twice. But what started in Atlanta on Monday when they came back against the Braves and then what happened Thursday night has felt as important as anything that has happened to the Mets in the nearly 40 years since the bottom of the 10th against the Red Sox.
It all starts with their two stars: Lindor and Alonso. Lindor has been doing everything lately, even having just recovered from a bad back. Alonso, the Mets' homegrown home run star, who once hit 53 home runs as a rookie, hasn’t been doing very much. Then, with this one swing of the bat against Brewers closer Devin Williams, he merely did everything. One of those October swings.
So the Mets go to Philadelphia and not home. It was fitting that Thursday night’s game ended with Lindor fielding a ground ball and flying to second base for a force before firing the ball to Alonso at first, Lindor a streak of light one more time in this Mets season, one in which they were 11 games under .500 on May 29, after just having finished 12 games under .500 the season before.
But they got up as the calendar turned to June. They got up Monday against the Braves when they were 3-0 down in the eighth inning, scored six runs, saw the Braves come back to take the lead again, then took it back on Lindor’s home run to right -- one that looked a lot like Alonso’s late Thursday night -- before Diaz closed the game because Mendoza wasn’t afraid to send him back out after he’d blown his team’s lead in the eighth.
All season long the Mets have been a 27-out team, and more than that when they had to be. They were again last night, down two runs and looking at next season. Nearly 40 years ago it was all those two-out singles in the bottom of the 10th of Game 6, Gary Carter and Kevin Mitchell and Ray Knight before Mookie Wilson finally hit that slow roller through Bill Buckner’s legs. This time it was a walk and a single before the Polar Bear, a two-time Home Run Derby champ, lost one at American Family Field.
There have been other postseason days and nights for the Mets since they won their last World Series. There has not been a better one than they produced in Milwaukee. All this time later, a top of the ninth to go with a bottom of the 10th from October of ’86. Mets fans didn’t win another World Series on Thursday. But for this one night, it sure felt that way.