It didn’t matter that Pete Alonso was so sick that Mets manager Buck Showalter thought about not starting him. The All-Star clobbered his league-leading 16th home run of the year, and Tylor Megill held the Rays’ offense in check as the Mets pulled out a 3-2 win in the rubber game on Thursday afternoon.
The afternoon didn’t start off great for Megill, who allowed a lead-off double to Josh Lowe on a ball hit 102.5 mph. Lowe would later come around to score on an RBI groundout by Harold Ramirez to put the Rays in front early and continue New York’s first-inning struggles.
However, the Mets quickly answered with an RBI groundout of their own as both offenses struggled to truly break the game open.
After Francisco Lindor walked in the bottom of the first inning, he moved to third on a single by Jeff McNeil, and then Pete Alonso walked to load the bases for Brett Baty. Baty hit a roll-over groundball to first base to plate Lindor, but then Tommy Pham struck out with runners on 2nd and 3rd to end the first with the game tied at one.
The offenses remained quiet until Alonso started off the bottom of the 4th inning by taking a 1-2 fastball at 97 mph and drilling it 446 feet to center field for a home run to give the Mets a 2-1 lead.
The first baseman is currently battling a sinus infection that is severe enough that Showalter apparently texted him after last night’s marathon victory to see if the slugger wanted to take a day off.
He did not.
“For me, if I’m physically able to go, I’m always willing to go,” Alonso said after the game. “I take pride in being out there and playing every day…That’s a characteristic that I want to keep throughout my whole career. It’s just who I am.”
His recent performance has been so stellar despite the illness that he even had Showalter joking about whether the Mets can find a way to keep it going.
“I was thinking, can we find something that would keep him sick but with lesser symptoms?”
While…
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