Pete Alonso's amazin', improbable October home run and a Mets comeback for the ages

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The baseball flew off Pete Alonso’s bat — headed for the right-field fence … and for history. But not just Mets history. October history.

The baseball flew off Alonso’s bat — and everything changed. A mammoth postseason baseball game. The fate of two teams’ seasons. And even this column.

I wasn’t planning to write an entire October Weird and Wild column on one home run. But then along came that home run. So why did I spend an entire Weird and Wild column trying to put it in perspective. Because it was …

Amazin’ — even for the Mets

OMG. What. Just. Happened.

I know the Mets won that game in Milwaukee on Thursday night. I saw it with my own eyes. I watched Pete Alonso circle the bases, blowing kisses, pumping all the fists he had at his disposal, screaming into the Milwaukee night. I know that happened.

But I’m calling it right now. You want to talk all-time wild moments in “Win Improbability,” a term I just invented three days ago to describe the 2024 Mets? This might be the all-time leader.

The all-time most improbable ninth-inning rally to turn a postseason game — and series — upside-down? I’m going to make a case that this was waaayyy up there on that list. Let me know what you think.

HOW IMPROBABLE WAS IT? The Mets were the 85th team in postseason history to enter the ninth inning of a winner-take-all game trailing by two runs or more. The previous 84 were 2-82!

The only teams to defy those odds:

Francisco Cabrera’s 1992 Braves, in NLCS Game 7 against Stan Belinda’s Pirates.

Carlos Beltrán’s 2012 Cardinals, in NLDS Game 5 against Drew Storen’s Nationals.

(Hat tip: the great Sarah Langs of MLB.com.)

I readily concede those were unforgettable, monumentally improbable finishes, too. I get that. But those teams weren’t facing …

THE MOST UNLIKELY GAME SCRIPT EVER — As the Mets came to bat in the ninth …

• None of their previous 17 hitters had gotten a hit! (They were 0-for-16, with one hit batter.)

• No Met other than Francisco Lindor had gotten a hit since the seventh inning of Game 2! (Those other dudes were 0 for their last 29!)

• 105 Mets hitters had dug into the batter’s box in this series. They’d combined to hit zero home runs!

• The man who was about to bash that life-changing home run, Alonso, was 5 for his last 41 (a .122 average) … and hadn’t had an extra-base hit since Sept. 19!

• The man on the mound, Devin Williams, hadn’t allowed a home run, to anyone, in 57 days — a span of 78 consecutive hitters. Since that last home run, the unfortunate batsmiths who had to face him were batting .097, and “slugging” .153, and 36 of those 78 (46.2 percent) had struck out!

And then that closer served up a homer to that hitter in the ninth inning of that game, a winner-take-all October special? Whooh. But wait. It was even more improbable than that. Let’s talk more about …

THE DEVIN WILLIAMS FACTOR — October is quite a month, isn’t it? You watch baseball, day after day, month after month, from April to September. You start to think you have a rough idea what to expect. But if you’ve spent any time watching Devin Williams, you would never expect that.

• How many runs did the Brewers closer allow all season? That would be three, in 22 appearances. How many runs did he allow in the ninth inning Thursday? That would be four. OK, so he was hurt for the first four months. But think about it. He gave up more runs in that inning than he’d given up all season. How weird and wild is that?

• This was the 116th time in his career Williams had thrown a pitch in the ninth inning of a game, regular season or postseason. Want to guess how many times he’d allowed a lead-flipping (i.e., leading to trailing) home run in the ninth inning of any of those other 115 games? If you guessed “none,” you’re thinking right along with us here.

• Then there was that pitch. Until that wave of Alonso’s bat, Williams had thrown 190 of his killer changeups this season, according to Statcast. Let’s play another guessing game: How many of those 190 changeups had landed on the other side of the fence? Once again, “none” would be a great guess.

• And finally, there’s this. Think about how many pitchers have gone to the mound at least 150 times in the live-ball era. You know which of those pitchers had allowed the lowest slugging percentage in their career, when pitching with a lead? I think you do.

The answer, according to Baseball Reference/Stathead, is Devin Williams! Opposing hitters who found themselves in the position the Mets were in last night have “slugged” .254 against him. And then that happened.

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Devin Williams gets a new baseball as Pete Alonso rounds third after his three-run home run. (Benny Sieu / Imagn Images)

But now let’s view all this through the prism of …

WHERE THIS FITS AMONG ICONIC OCTOBER MOMENTS — In Tim Britton’s wonderful piece on this game in The Athletic, this Pete Alonso passage jumped out at me:

Did he understand Thursday night the magnitude of what he’d just achieved?

“Not right now,” he said with a smile, before a pause. “I don’t think I ever will.”

Or maybe he’ll stumble upon this column. What was the magnitude of this moment? That’s our job here at October Weird and Wild World HQ, to explain just how magnitudinous it really was.

A lead-flipping home run in the ninth inning of a winner-take-all game? OK, Pete. Take this in. The complete list of men who have hit one of those consists of … just you! That’s mind-blowing, I know. But it’s a 100 percent true fact, which is still the best kind of fact.

A lead-flipping home run in the ninth to avoid elimination? This is a slightly different category, right? These are games that aren’t necessarily elimination games for both teams, as Thursday’s game was. But even with that distinction, only two other players have hit a lead-flipping home run that late in a postseason game that they had to win to keep their team’s season alive:

Albert Pujols, 2005 NLCS Game 5 — The Brad Lidge Homer. I’ll never forget that swing of the bat. Did that ball come down yet?

Dave Henderson, 1986 ALCS Game 5 — The Donnie Moore Homer. Another all-timer. But this one separates itself from the Pujols bomb because Pujols’ team wound up losing that series. So who are the only two men who hit lead-flipping ninth-inning postseason homers that turned a series loss into an eventual series win? It’s just Dave Henderson … and Pete Alonso.

So those are two October classics we’re still talking about. They’re also a part of our next list …

What about lead-flipping homers in the ninth in a potential clincher for either team? What if we don’t just talk about homers that staved off elimination? What if we look at where Alonso’s blast fits among lead-flipping long balls in the ninth inning (or later) of postseason games where just one team could clinch?

Got it? Cool. There were still only four others in postseason history. Pujols and Henderson hit two of them — the only two who went deep to keep their teams from going home. But there were two more. You’ve heard of them. When the ball left the bat of these next two men, their teams were an out or two away from being forced to play a Game 7. But once that ball came down … there’d be no need for that!

Joe Carter, 1993 World Series Game 6 — The Mitch Williams Homer. Carter’s team trailed by one with one out in the ninth. One three-run homer later, the Blue Jays had just won the World Series. Sorry to bring that one up again, Philadelphia!

Jack Clark, 1985 NLCS Game 6 — The Tom Niedenfuer Homer. A three-run bomb with two outs in the ninth. The Cardinals were heading for the World Series. The cool subplot before the pitch: Vin Scully read Tommy Lasorda’s lips in the dugout and reported that those lips uttered these words: “Do I walk him and pitch to that blank-blank (Andy) Van Slyke?” Would have been an excellent idea!

But back here in 2024, let’s keep going. What about …

Any kind of lead-flipping hit in the ninth in a winner-take-all game — We don’t want to be home run snobs here. So we’ll take singles. We’ll take doubles. We’ll take triples. We’ll take ’em all. We’re magnanimous like that.

We now present every player in postseason history who came to bat in the ninth (or later) with his team trailing, then delivered a hit — of any kind — that turned a loss into a win. This list, shockingly, is much shorter than you’d think.

Francisco Cabrera, 1992 NLCS Game 7 — Yeah, him again. This was a two-run walk-off single that is still the source of many a Pittsburgh nightmare. Sid Bream!

Edgar Martinez, 1995 ALDS Game 5  — This was the most Edgar moment ever: a two-run walk-off double that ended the Yankees’ season. Dave Niehaus’ call is spectacular: Here comes Junior (Griffey) to third base. THEY’RE GOING TO WAVE HIM IN.”

Pete Alonso, 2024 NLWC Game 3 — More excellent company for Pete Alonso!

(Hat tip: YES Network’s James Smyth)

And finally …

We started this column talking about Win Improbability. But since Baseball Reference gives us the ability to tell you how much every postseason hit in history added to a team’s Win Probability, we went down that rabbit hole.

Here they come, the top two hits in the history of winner-take-all games, as measured by the Win Probability they added:

1. Francisco Cabrera’s single — +73.7 percent

2. Pete Alonso’s homer — +63.9 percent

No wonder that home run will be flying through the sky in Pete Alonso’s brain for the rest of his life. He just hit the most game-changing, series-changing home run in any winner-take-all baseball game ever played. So yeah …

That. Just. Happened.

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(Top photo:Patrick McDermott / Getty Images)





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About The Author

Avatar of Elizabeth Wilson
Elizabeth Wilson is a news writer for Texas-Express.com, where she covers lifestyle, books, sports, education, and tech. She has been with the company since 2018. In her free time, Elizabeth likes to read and watch sci-fi movies. She also enjoys playing board games with friends and family.

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