Pete Alonso clubbed two of the New York Mets’ six homers Tuesday night, enabling him to set the franchise’s record for most career homers, during a 13-5 rout of the visiting Atlanta Braves.
Alonso’s first homer, a two-run shot to right-center in the bottom of the third, was the 253rd of his seven-year career. That knocked Darryl Strawberry’s 37-year old record out of the books and Alonso got a long ovation from the Citi Field crowd, taking a curtain call to boot.
Alonso added his 28th homer of the year in the sixth, marking his fourth two-homer game of the year and allowing New York to snap a seven-game losing streak. Teammate Francisco Alvarez also cracked a pair of homers, while Brandon Nimmo and Brett Baty tacked on homers in the team’s 16-hit attack.
Reliever Gregory Soto (1-3) worked 1 1/3 scoreless innings, and rookie Justin Hagenman pitched four hitless innings to earn his first major league save. Starter Clay Holmes was bailed out despite permitting six hits and five runs in 3 2/3 innings, walking five and striking out four.
Spencer Strider (5-10) was pummeled for eight hits and eight runs over four innings with two walks and two strikeouts. The game was so lopsided that Atlanta resorted to using infielder Luke Williams on the mound for the final 1 1/3 innings.
The Braves initiated scoring in the first on Drake Baldwin’s groundout that plated Jurickson Profar, but the Mets responded with three in the second. Cedric Mullins’ two-out single scored Alonso and Alvarez drilled his first homer of the night over the right field wall.
After Alonso’s record-setting shot, Atlanta drove Holmes from the mound with four runs in the fourth. Nacho Alvarez doubled for his first two MLB RBIs, while Profar added a run-scoring groundout and Matt Olson sliced a double into the left field corner to tie the game at 5.
Nimmo put New York ahead to stay in its half of the fourth with a three-run homer, his 20th. Alvarez’s RBI double and Baty’s run-producing single in the fifth made it 10-5.
Alvarez and Baty capped the scoring in the seventh with back-to-back solo blasts.
–Field Level Media
