Polar Bear Stands Alone

In the 64 year history of the New York Mets, there have been 1,238 players that have hit at least one home run for the team. Seventeen men have hit over 100 in the Blue and Orange. Four of those have hit more than 200 with the team. But as of tonight, there's a new name at the top of that list: Pete Alonso!

Pete's spent his entire big league career in New York, which is at 965 career games and counting. In game 965, against the Atlanta Braves at home, Alonso cracked career home run #253, a two run shot, to pass Daryl Strawberry for the Mets record. He's hit at least 30 home runs in every full big league season, save for the Covid shortened year of 2020. Pete needs three more this year for another 30 homer season.

Lets not forget that the Mets have had some pretty good home run hitters in their history. Dave Kingman, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, Howard Johnson, David Wright, Mike Piazza, and Daryl Strawberry, just to name a few. And Alonso has now topped them all.

Now if the team could get back on their winning ways, that would be great!

Tough Times In Queens

If you're a fan of the New York Mets at this moment, some level of concern has to begin to creep into your mind right now. Since the all star break, the Mets offense seems like they haven't been able to find their way. Hell, it seems like that has been the trend since the middle of June.

The question is, is it time to hit the panic button on the Blue and Orange yet?

Yes, and No.

Yes in that they have, in fact, hit a slide. The team is 18-27 over their last 45 games. Sure, at times the offense, and team as a whole, has had their moments. There was that seven game winning streak right after the all star break. But since then, the team has lost nine of ten. Lindor has quieted down as of late, and the bottom of the order isn't producing the way it was a couple of months ago.

Besides the hitting, its become clear that starting pitching isn't what it used to be at the beginning of the year. The Mets have gone 46 starts without having their starters go six innings on back to back days. That's going to be a big problem the later we get into the season, for what it's going to be doing to the pen. Sure the pen was bolstered at the trade deadline. But what good is it going to do if the team is getting overworked because of the inability of the starters to go deep into games.

I know it hasn't looked good the last couple of weeks for the team, but there is still some good news. As of this writing, the team is still ten games over .500. They are still within striking distance of the Phillies for first place, just three and a half games back. They are still three and a half games up on the Reds for the final wild card spot,  and three and a half back of the Cubs for that top wild card spot (which would mean hosting the wild card series). Alonso is still delivering. Soto is heating up a little bit.

There is still hope and optimism around this team. But there is doubt that's starting to creep into the back of the minds for Mets fans.