Pete Alonso hits mammoth 474-foot homer in win over Twins
MINNEAPOLIS —Pete Alonso often watches his home runs take flight.
“So you know where it goes,” Alonso said.
That philosophy allowed him to see his moonshot in the eighth inning of the Mets’ 14-4 win over the Twins Wednesday reach the third deck at Target Field. The 474-foot blast marked the fifth-longest homer in the history of this stadium, and is the longest by a Met in the Statcast era dating to the 2015 season.
“I’ve been here a lot, seen a lot of (batting practices) here, and people don’t even him them there in BP. That’s pretty impressive,” Mets manager Mickey Callaway said. “When you go third deck anywhere it’s impressive.”
Alonso, the reigning Home Run Derby champion, has such prolific power that he can make any park look small. The ball just leaves his bat differently.
The slugger entered the eighth inning in a 1-for-17 slump in the second half, and that all changed with an inside slider from Matt Magill. Alonso turned on the pitch and hit an absolute mammoth shot to give the Mets that 11-4 lead.
The Mets scored six unearned runs that inning after a two-out error by Eddie Rosario that prevented the Twins from ending the inning trailing only 5-3.
“It just felt good off the bat,” Alonso said.
While that homer was quite the sight, Alonso actually said it did not feel as good ooff the bat as his April 11 homer at SunTrust Park in Atlanta that landed in the fountain in center field. Alonso now owns the Mets’ rookie record with 54 extra-base hits, and is chasing the team’s single-season home record of 41.
“It was amazing,” Dom Smith said. “I get the pleasure of taking BP with Pete, and I get to see a lot of moonshots. For him to showcase that one, for him to hit one like that, it just shows how much power he is and what kind of player he is. It was fun.”