Pete Alonso's home run record lifts recent gloom, gives Mets fans reason to cheer

The guitar riff to “Layla” had barely stopped playing when Pete Alonso connected, a cinematic score for a cinematic moment.

Spencer Strider’s 95.1-mph, first-pitch fastball couldn’t have caught more of the plate if it tried, and Alonso, as he had done 252 times before in his career, didn’t miss. It rocketed off his bat at 112.8 mph and traveled 387-feet to the visitors’ bullpen in right center.

At first, Alonso looked shell-shocked. Fireworks shot up from the scoreboard naming him the Mets’ new home run king, and it was only until after he crossed first base, face still slack, that Alonso remembered to perform the team’s celebratory arm gesture. Between second and third, he began to beam, wide and bright and almost childlike, and when he finally crossed home plate, the perfect teammates were there to greet him.

There was Brandon Nimmo, whom he drove in with the home run, and Jeff McNeil, in the on-deck circle. Both were homegrown like him, woven into the fabric of this franchise, like him.

In the third inning of Tuesday’s 13-5 win over Atlanta, Alonso, the Met who seemed so destined to leave this previous offseason, surpassed Darryl Strawberry for the franchise home run record. And, while doing so, reintroduced something that has been missing for so, so long during this brutal, demoralizing stretch.

There was joy in Flushing, and a little magic, too.

Maybe even some hope.

The crowd, which has been understandably taciturn over what’s been nothing less than a nightmarish two months, chanted his name over and over, until Alonso, who couldn’t keep from grinning, climbed onto the dugout bench for his curtain call. The cheers continued as he took his spot at first base, waving his hat to the crowd. Manager Carlos Mendoza teared up in the dugout.

“Surreal, unbelievable, special,” Mendoza said.

And it almost didn’t happen.

This offseason, Alonso fought to remain a Met despite a front office unwilling to give him an extended contract. Unlike Juan Soto, he probably won’t be here 15 years from now. Unlike Nimmo and McNeil, he’s not fully locked in after this year (he can opt out after this year). Tuesday, after he hit two homers, he was asked about how much more he could do for this franchise.

“I have a goal to play until I’m through my age 40 season,” Alonso said. “I’m going to work hard to do that and on the business side, David [Stearns] and Steve [Cohen], they’ve got to come through.”

They really, really do.

Alonso has an opt out after this season, but this game proved why this is no time to nickel and dime a player whose heart beats to the tune of “Meet the Mets.”

Take, for instance, what happened in the fourth when Clay Holmes, gifted a 5-1 lead behind Alonso’s record-breaking homer, coughed up all four runs.

“Pete was trying to put a smile on my face” after that happened, Mendoza said. “[He] just broke the record, we just lost the lead and trying to make funny jokes while I’m waiting for [Gregory] Soto.”

That says a lot: So often, this would have been the death knell for a team whose recent stretch has been thoroughly pockmarked by poor pitching and uncompetitive at-bats. But not this time, not with the smoke from the fireworks still lingering in the air, and not with this milestone moment on the line.

See, the thing is, while a lot of the Mets’ big hitters have struggled, it’s often been up to Alonso to pick up the slack, all while keeping things loose. His .267 is second on the team, and his 96 RBIs are tops by an over 30-RBI margin. For a team that can’t hit with runners in scoring position, Alonso does just fine, hitting a team-best .331 in those situations.

This time, though, his teammates were there to return the favor.

With two outs in the fourth, Francisco Lindor, 0-for-19 in his last five games, laid down a cheeky bunt and grinned as he reached safely. Soto worked out a walk. And Nimmo made sure that Alonso’s homer wouldn’t be a footnote in another dispiriting loss: He blasted Strider’s slider 387 feet to right for the three-run homer.

This bore no resemblance to the team of the last two months, the one that came into the day 18-31 since June 13. This more closely resembled the Mets of last year, the one that routinely stared down oblivion with a wink and a smirk.

And that, for all the doom and gloom that’s followed them like an unrelenting shadow, is what made Tuesday matter the most. This is an imperfect team, but one with talent and with the ability to do real damage, if it can only come out of this all-encompassing funk.

So many fans ask about the “vibes” in the clubhouse, or the team chemistry. But the truth is, vibes and chemistry often go hand-in-hand with success. We saw that Tuesday, but we especially saw it in the sixth inning.

Again, Alonso strode to the plate. Again, his walk-up music had barely stopped playing before he launched a first-pitch cutter to the seats in left for his fourth multi-homer game of the year.

The fireworks made a repeat appearance, the Pete A-lon-so chants resumed, and the Flushing polar bear made his second curtain call. The Mets hit two more homers after that and finished with six.

It was apt. The stage belonged to Alonso, and the Mets, as they have so often during his career, followed his cue. The powers that be should make sure he does it here for as long as he’s able.