Pete Alonso drives in six, Mets get first win since trade deadline with 11-2 victory against Cubs

The Mets took three out of four games against the Nationals over a week ago. Then the trade deadline passed, and the team—who had already traded off some pieces of their squad, and traded off even more of them once the series with Washington was completed—suddenly looked like a completely different team. More importantly, they played like a completely different team, as they lost six straight to the Royals and Orioles and looked utterly hopeless while doing it. To put it bluntly, they looked like a team that would never sniff another victory again.

Well, the rest of the season will still probably be pretty tough, but they’ve at least finally gotten a win in August and showed that they’re at least capable of putting up a punch offensively. Led by a strong offensive performance by Pete Alonso and a solid start by Kodai Senga, the Mets began a series against the Chicago Cubs with an easy—albeit rain delayed—11-2 victory.

The Mets got off to a quick start against Cubs starting pitcher Drew Smyly. A walk and a single put two runners on with one out for Alonso, who got under a 2-0 pitch but still managed to send it over the left field wall for a three-run shot to give the Amazins an early lead. That was just the first offensive contribution from the Polar Bear of the night, as he would also go on to sock a two-run shot to right-center field in the bottom of the third inning. The Mets’ lineup may not look quite as potent as it once did, but Alonso is still firmly capable of putting the team’s offense on his back on any given night, as he did here.

Meanwhile, Senga started for the Amazins after a fairly middling start against the Royals last week. As was the case in Kansas City, he gave up a few more hits than he’s normally accustomed to—albeit some of them of the soft variety. Still, on the whole, Senga pitched quite well tonight. He surrendered runs in both the third and fifth innings—in both cases, he surrendered three singles culminated by RBI knocks off the bat of Cody Bellinger. Other than that, however, Senga kept the Cubs at bay while also being fairly efficient, as he made it through six innings on just 85 pitches. It was the kind of strong, reliable performance that the Mets will be hoping to see a lot of in the last two months from the man who is now unquestionably at the top of the rotation pecking order.

In the bottom of the sixth, the fearsome bottom of the Mets’ lineup—led by the deadly trio of Danny Mendick, Rafael Ortega, and Jonathan Araúz—struck for some more runs. The inning started with three straight singles to load the bases, and then a walk to Araúz brought home a run and led to Smyly’s departure from the game. He would have one more run attached to his final line—but only one more—as new Cubs pitcher Caleb Kilian induced a run-scoring double play ball off the bat of Brandon Nimmo to make it 7-2 Mets.

Throughout much of this action, rain was steadily falling at Citi Field. Things came to a head when the Mets came onto the field for the top of the seventh, and the grounds crew spent several minutes desperately attempting to keep the field playable. Senga attempted to throw some warm-up pitches to test the mound, but Buck Showalter eventually decided to remove his ace—and soon too did the umpires decide to stop the charade and brought the tarp onto the field for a rain delay. The game resumed around 11:15, with Brooks Raley coming on in place of Senga (who ended his night with six innings, seven hits, two walks, six strikeouts, and two runs).

If you were rational and did not stay up to watch the game resume, you may not believe me when I tell you that the Mets added three additional runs in the bottom of the seventh inning on a Danny Mendick home run, but I do decree that I saw it with my own eyes. You will also have missed catcher Tucker Barnhart coming on to pitch the bottom of the eighth inning for the Cubs, at which point the Mets added another run with three straight singles (culminated by another RBI knock from Alonso, making it six on the night for our beautiful Florida man). On the other hand, not much of note happened on the pitching side for the Mets after the game resumed—Raley, Drew Smith, and Jimmy Yacabonis combined to toss three scoreless innings once the rain subsided, which closed the door on an 11-2 victory. So... rejoice! The Mets are still bad, but they are in fact capable of winning a game every now and then!

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What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Pete Alonso, +35.3% WPA
Big Mets loser: Brandon Nimmo, -3.6% WPA
Mets pitchers: +11.9% WPA
Mets hitters: +38.1% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Pete Alonso three-run homer in the first, +22.9% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Cody Bellinger RBI single in the third, -9.0% WPA