Mets Morning News: He did it

Meet the Mets

The Mets shut out the Braves 3-0 and Pete Alonso hit his 53rd home run of the season, breaking Aaron Judge’s record for most home runs ever in a single season by a rookie. Steven Matz pitched six scoreless innings and earned his eleventh win, finishing out the season over .500. Rene Rivera snapped a scoreless tie in the third inning with a two-run homer to help lift the Mets to victory. Jeurys Familia and Brad Brach each logged a scoreless inning of relief and Edwin Diaz earned his 26th save of the season with a clean inning that included two strikeouts.

Choose your recap: Amazin’ Avenue recap short and long, Bergen County Record, MLB.com, Newsday, New York Post, NY Daily News

Anthony Rieber of Newsday is already excited to watch Pete Alonso in 2020. Who isn’t?

If the Mets want to compete next year, it’s going to be hard to do so without the Wilpons opening their wallets and raising the team’s payroll, writes Joel Sherman.

“What an outstanding year,” Mickey Callaway said of Seth Lugo. And what an outstanding year it was. He pitched to a 2.70 ERA over 80 innings and notched a career-high 104 strikeouts.

After some speculation on whether he would be activated from the injured list before the year was over, Robert Gsellman will not pitch this weekend.

Meanwhile, Jed Lowrie is focused on getting fully healthy for 2020. “I certainly know I have the skill set to play every day,” he said. “It’s just a matter of getting my body right. If I can continue to get the things that I need, I think I can.”

Juan Lagares is the longest-tenured Met and he prepares to say goodbye to the only organization he has ever played for.

Rajai Davis intends to continue playing baseball in 2020 and says he has enjoyed his time in New York with the Mets.

Around the National League East

The Nationals beat the Indians 10-7, securing home field advantage in the National League Wild Card game with their seventh straight victory.

Gerardo Parra talked to the Washington Post about going from being cut by the Giants to playing baseball in October.

The Phillies beat the Marlins 9-3 backed by a strong start from Zach Eflin. With the victory, the Phillies clinched their first winning season since 2011.

Miguel Rojas will serve as Marlins player-manager in their season finale today.

Around Major League Baseball

Joel Sherman gives his picks for all of the individual awards. He picked Jacob deGrom to win the NL Cy Young and Pete Alonso to win the NL Rookie of the Year.

Pete Alonso wasn’t the only one to reach a milestone last night. Justin Verlander struck out his 3,000th batter, becoming just the 18th pitcher in baseball history to do so.

Meg Rowley of Fangraphs wrote her moving tribute to Felix Hernandez.

Rob Arthur of Baseball Prospectus wrote a postmortem of where PECOTA went right with the Cubs, where it went wrong, and what the Cubs can learn from it going forward.

Speaking of the Cubs, benches cleared in last night’s Cubs/Cardinals game when Cole Hamels hit Yadier Molina with a pitch.

The Rockies walked off the Brewers in the 10th inning last night, which allowed the Cardinals to remain in first place in the NL Central heading into the final game of the season.

Yesterday at Amazin’ Avenue

Chris McShane gave us the results of this week’s FanPulse poll, which reveal an uptick in optimism among Mets fans at the end of the season, but a very low approval rating for Mickey Callaway heading into the offseason.

Brian Salvatore covered Pete Alonso’s record-breaking homer.

This Date in Mets History

On this date in 1975, Casey Stengel passed away from lymphatic cancer at the age of 85.