MINNEAPOLIS — Jinx? Did someone say jinx?
Well … there weren’t a lot of people using that word inside the Mets’ clubhouse the past few days. But it has certainly been a subject of conversation in those places where Mets fans gather to ruminate and restlessly wait for the sky to fall and the other shoe to drop.
So when Pete Alonso went homerless through his first four games after winning the Home Run Derby, there was some nervous chatter starting to gain steam. When he was 1-for-17 with eight strikeouts for his first 18 at-bats, post-Derby — including two strikeouts in his first three hitless at-bats Wednesday — you saw an awful lot of the dog cartoon that proliferates on social media in times of trouble, the pooch surrounded by flames and insisting, “This is fine.”
And then, with one swing, it really was fine.
With one mighty swat off a Matt Magill 87 mph spinner, Alonso reminded a lot of the folks who root for him that he is, as we have come to see, a different breed of cat when it comes to these things. He launched the ball 474 feet into the third deck at Target Field, and players on both teams instantly marveled at what they’d just seen.
“I’ve seen a lot of batting practices in this ballpark,” said Mets manager Mickey Callaway, who would come here nine or 10 times every year when he was the pitching coach for Cleveland. “And I’ve never seen a ball hit up there, even in BP.”
The home run didn’t have a lot of significance for the game — the Mets were already up 11-3 at the time — but it certainly will have its value in tamping down the worry that whatever gets into some Derby participants, it likely hasn’t affected or infected Alonso.
“For him to hit one like that shows how much power he has and what a player he is,” said Dom Smith, who himself had a terrific day at the plate with four RBIs.
Said Alonso himself: “It felt good off the bat. I knew it was fine as soon as I hit it.”
Asked if he watched where it landed he laughed sheepishly: “Yeah.”
Mets fans, of course, have a lot greater sense of institutional knowledge than Alonso does, so their frame of reference on this subject goes back 13 years, to the 2006 Derby. David Wright had hit 20 homers heading into the ’06 All-Star break, one every 19.3 times at-bat. He put on a show in the Derby at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park before tiring and losing in the finals to Ryan Howard. Then, in the second half of ’06, Wright was limited to juts six homers and a pace of one for every 45.8 ABs.
And thus was the jinx hatched, at least as far as Mets fans were concerned.
Alonso wanted no part of that. Asked playfully postgame if the Derby had ruined his swing, Alonso chose to answer the question straight, and simple: “No,” he said. It was easier to believe after what he’d just done with one unlucky — and unjinxed — baseball.