Welcome to the second edition of Tuesday Top Ten, an offseason series which attempts to rank specific moments, players, games, or other nostalgic occurrences from throughout Mets history. The previous ranking looked at the Mets’ best World Series performers as the Blue Jays and Dodgers battled for a championship. With the offseason officially underway, this list will revisit the most memorable and meaningful home runs supplied by the team’s most notable free agent: 2019 Rookie of the Year, 2025 Silver
Slugger, five-time All-Star, and franchise home run leader Pete Alonso.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll only be evaluating in-game home runs (apologies to the back-to-back Home Run Derby victories) hit at the major league level (apologies to the 2018 Futures Game moonshot). As with all rankings, this list is also entirely subjective, though the higher powers of Win Probability Added were occasionally consulted. With all that out of the way, let’s count down this Tuesday’s Top Ten…
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Western Metal Supply Co. (May 7, 2019)
A gargantuan go-ahead homer off the top floor of Petco Park’s left field fixture, marking the moment many of us realized that the young Polar Bear had a knack for coming through in the clutch.
The Minnesota Mash (July 17, 2019)
At 489 feet, this third-deck blast at Target Field is still the longest homer of Alonso’s career, and easily the longest homer hit by a Met in the Statcast era (since 2015).
All-Star Game (July 15, 2025)
The third All-Star Game homer in Mets history, and the first since David Wright’s in 2006.
THE LIST
10. 1 Win Down, 88 To Go (April 4, 2024)
As Gary Cohen famously put it, the 2024 Mets went “from 0-5 to OMG.” While Alonso is better remembered for his starring role in the season’s closing festivities, it’s his heroics which jumpstarted the paralyzed offense and got the team rolling in the first place. In the second game of a doubleheader against the Tigers, with the Mets having lost five in a row and sleepwalking towards an ugly 1-0 loss, Alonso led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a solo homer to left. The homer kickstarted a rally, and three batters later, a Tyrone Taylor walk-off double gave the Mets their first of 89 wins in 2024.
If it wasn’t clear enough from the circumstances that Alonso symbolically picked his team up off the ground, the changeup that Alex Faedo threw was just 1.07 feet above the dirt, making it the lowest pitch any Met has hit for a home run in the regular season since Pitch F/X data became available in 2008. As with seemingly every Alonso homer over the past two seasons, it also served as a milestone, marking his 500th career RBI.
9. Grand Against The Guardians (May 19, 2023)
The third grand slam of Pete Alonso’s career came at just the right time: down by four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning. The swing helped set the stage for Francisco Lindor, who later delivered a storybook walk-off single against his old team in the bottom of the tenth inning.
In classic Polar Bear fashion, the ball was deposited into the bullpen under the Shea Bridge, showcasing his awesome opposite-field power. In classic Polar Bear fashion, the homer also managed to mark a historical milestone, tying Lucas Duda for the most home runs in Citi Field history with 71. Believe it or not, it was only the third game-tying grand slam in Mets history, after Todd Hundley’s at Coors Field in 1995 and Carl Everett’s with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning off Ugueth Urbina in 1997.
8. Game 2 = 3-2 (October 8, 2022)
It’s certainly not the go-ahead postseason home run Alonso would eventually be known for, but with the score tied at two and the Mets facing elimination in the Wild Card round against the Padres, this solo shot off Nick Martinez was once the most pivotal swing of his life. It gave Jacob deGrom and the Mets a lead they would not relinquish, as the team won its first playoff game in seven years.
The homer was the last for the 2022 Mets, who were infamously one-hit by a shiny-eared Joe Musgrove in Game 3 of the series (the one hit was a single by Alonso in the fifth inning). The Mets’ next postseason home run would come two years later, earning an entry of a different magnitude on this list…
7. Pete-on-Pete Crime (May 17, 2023)
These are the kinds of homers dreams are made of. Bottom of the tenth. Two runs down. Men on first and third. Pete Fairbanks, one of the best relievers in baseball, throws a 98 mph fastball up in the zone. You don’t try to drive it the other way. You don’t try to get your team closer with a sac fly. You just swing hard, flip your bat, put your hands in the air, make a muscle with your arm, watch as it sails into the second deck, and make your well-deserved trot around the bases.
Believe it or not, Alonso’s bomb was arguably only the second-best second-deck homer of this game, as one inning earlier Francisco Álvarez hit a three-run, game-tying homer with the Mets down to their final out. During a season when the Mets seemed mired in an endless, unbreakable rut, this magical May night stands as an underrated Citi Field classic.
6. Making A Splash (April 11, 2019)
Metaphorically speaking, Alonso had already made a splash before this literal one. Over his first eleven games in the majors, the twenty-four year old had hit .366 with five homers, six doubles, and 15 RBI. But on April 11, Alonso delivered his most awesome display yet, depositing a Jonny Venters fastball over over the batters eye and into the elevated pool of water at Truist Park.
At 454 feet, it was the farthest that a Mets right-handed hitter had hit a home run to the right of center field in the Statcast era, a mark which has been matched only twice since — both times by Alonso. At 118.3 mph, it was the hardest-hit home run by any Met in the Statcast era, and the hardest-hit homer by anyone in baseball in that span aside from Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. It was also the first time in Truist Park’s young history that a ball had landed in the water, a feat which occurred once more that season when Alonso did it again on August 8. In other words, the Mets’ rookie first baseman had officially announced his arrival as one of the most dangerous bats in the game.
5. For The Franchise (September 3, 2020)
The 2020 season was a strange time for baseball, with an unprecedented 60-game season played in empty stadiums. It was a strange time for the Mets, who recorded the highest team OPS+ in franchise history despite finishing with a meager 26-34 record. It was a strange time for Pete Alonso, who was shoehorned into the narrative of a “sophomore slump” due to a decline from his otherworldly 2019 debut while still on pace for 45 homers over the course of a full season.
On September 2, just six days after Amed Rosario’s bizarre walk-off home run at Yankee Stadium, the season took yet another turn when news broke that Tom Seaver had passed away. The Amazins’ universe was sent into a state of mourning ahead of a rainy series opener against the Yankees. It’s in this haze that the Mets delivered their signature moment of 2020, erasing 4-0 and 7-4 deficits before the Polar Bear — on his path to eventually joining Seaver in the pantheon of franchise greats — crushed a two-run, walk-off home run down the left field line. It was the first walk-off home run of Alonso’s career. It should’ve been one of the most remembered moments in Citi Field history; a cathartic outpouring of emotion, and a ceremonious tribute to The Franchise. Instead, the stadium was filled with cardboard fans and pumped with fake crowd noise. Like I said, 2020 was a strange time.
4. A Big, Strong Guy (May 19, 2022)
What’s better than hitting a homer that ends a game? Hitting a homer that ends an argument. On this Thursday afternoon getaway game against the Cardinals at Citi Field, Alonso did both at once. The previous month at Busch Stadium, bad blood between the Mets and Cardinals mounted after Alonso got hit in the head with a pitch, J.D. Davis got drilled in the toe, and Yoan López threw a clearly-intentional fastball up and in on Nolan Arenado. Tensions escalated into a benches-clearing scuffle, with Alonso being brought to the ground by St. Louis’ first base coach Stubby Clapp. Alonso fired shots in his postgame interview, calling the surprise tackle “cheap” while twice referring to himself as a “big, strong guy.”
When the Cardinals came to Queens in May, Alonso backed up his description, putting his size and strength on full display with a two-run walk-off blast. It was one in a series of euphoric moments for an exceptional 2022 team which often played with a chip on its shoulder, getting hit by a franchise-record 112 pitches while winning 101 games thanks to clutch comebacks like this one. If you’re going to hit Alonso in the helmet, you better be prepared for him to hit a ball into the second deck — and then toss his helmet like a basketball towards home plate.
3. No. 253 (August 12, 2025)
Pete Alonso became the Mets’ all-time home run king in spirit when he re-signed with the team before the 2025 season, but it wasn’t until August 12 that the title was made official with a two-run, opposite-field home run off Spencer Strider at Citi Field. Despite its long-awaited arrival, the homer itself still seemed to take everyone in the ballpark by surprise, with a sizzling 95.1 mph exit velocity and a 19-degree launch angle (the lowest for an Alonso homer in 2025) which made it read off the bat more like a double in the gap than a moment in Mets history.
Alonso hit eleven more home runs in 2025, bringing him to a career total of 264. So much time was focused that summer on Alonso’s chase for the Mets’ record that his pursuit of a broader greatness might have been overlooked. Those 264 homers are the third-most for a player in the first seven seasons of their career, behind Ralph Kiner and Albert Pujols, and one of Alonso’s seasons was only 60 games long. Only time will tell whether he extends his record in orange and blue to 300, or 400, or even 500 homers. But wherever his private iceberg floats, Pete’s path to becoming one of the best power hitters in baseball history remains clear.
2. No. 53 (September 28, 2019)
Barely beating out Alonso’s homer to become the Mets’ franchise leader is another record-setting homer hit to right-center field against the Braves at Citi Field: his fifty-third home run of the 2019 season, overtaking Aaron Judge’s record set two years prior for the most by a rookie in baseball history. Unlike his landmark accomplishment six years later, this one was anything but inevitable. In fact, Alonso needed two homers with three games remaining to break the record. Up until the moment his bat connected with a Mike Foltynewicz fastball in Game 161, there was no guarantee that Pete would be able to pull it off.
In March, he had been a promising but unproven prospect determined to earn a spot on the major league roster. Six months later, he was the heart and soul of Flushing, coining the “LFGM” acronym and supercharging the team’s youthful core with a shirt-ripping, bat-flipping swagger that channeled memories of old Mets greats. When he returned to first base in tears for the top of the fourth inning, Alonso wasn’t just the new rookie home run king. He was the new face of a franchise.
1. “He Did It! He Did It!” (October 3, 2024)
Not every great athlete gets to have a playoff moment this great. Not every great shooter gets to knock down a buzzer-beater three-pointer with their team down by two. Not every great quarterback gets to throw a Hail Mary pass for a touchdown with the clock at zero. Down by two, with two men on and two outs left before the Mets would be eliminated, Pete Alonso got to have his moment. It wasn’t handed to him on a silver platter, either. Of the 213 changeups that Devin Williams had thrown on the outside part of the strike zone to right-handed hitters up to that point in his career, none had resulted in a home run (only one had even resulted in as much as an extra-base hit, and that was off the bat of Juan Soto). It took the Polar Bear’s patented opposite-field approach to power the ball over a leaping Sal Frelick, preserving the Mets’ fairytale season.
There are a lot of striking images in that oft-rewatched highlight that might have burned into Mets’ fans minds over the past year. Everyone from Luisangel Acuña Jr. to Harrison Bader pouring out of the third base dugout and frantically jumping up and down like a bunch of little leaguers. Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo, two of the Mets’ longest-tenured players, waiting to hug the hero as he crossed home plate. But the most telling is this: Before the ESPN broadcast could even cut to their overhead camera to track the ball through the air, Alonso had already begun screaming while clutching his bat in his right hand. The runners held on the base paths. Frelick chased the ball to the wall. The announcers hesitated. But Alonso knew instantly. It’s as if from the first moment he stepped into a major league batters box, he’s always known. He’s always been confident, and he’s always come through.
Howie Rose said it plainly in his iconic call: “Pete Alonso, with the most memorable home run of his career.” Who am I to disagree? When Amazin’ Avenue’s Linda Surovich ranked the ten most momentous postseason home runs in Mets history last fall, she listed this as the No. 1 moment, and one year later the ranking holds up under any accusations of recency bias. Heck, it might even be the No. 1 homer in Mets history overall. But it is undoubtedly the No. 1 homer of Pete Alonso’s career.
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