MIAMI — On Friday, Pete Alonso faced the heat during and after a rough game that included a misplay that led to a Marlins run.
On Saturday, Alonso faced heat and demolished it.
What might be the final regular-season game of Alonso’s Mets career will have meaning Sunday, when the player and team will be playing for a shot at the postseason in large part because of his handling of Eury Pérez’s fastballs.
In a 5-0 win over the Marlins in Game 161 at loanDepot Park, Alonso helped ensure Game 162 would matter.
“Pete setting the tone early on,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after the Mets could exhale for the day at least, “we needed that.”
To guarantee that their final game of the season would hold significance, the Mets had to do something against Pérez, whose stuff was electric and who struck out 11 in 5 ¹/₃ innings.
They did not do much but did do the requisite something.
It began in the first when Francisco Lindor (walk, wild pitch) reached second with one out.
In a season in which the Mets have stranded far too many on base, Alonso barreled a 99.1-mph four-seamer for a crushed double to left-center to give the Mets a lead they would not give back.
“I felt like I had good at-bats all day, and hopefully I carry this over for tomorrow,” said Alonso, whose second at-bat was better.
The Mets recorded three hits against Pérez, and two leapt off Alonso’s bat.
Behind 1-2 in the count in the fourth inning, the slugger laid off a couple of pitches out of the zone to force the count full.
“He tried to sneak one up,” Alonso said, “and I feel like I was ready for it.”
The Marlins flamethrower reached back for a 100.6-mph four-seamer, and Alonso timed it right in turning on a no-doubter that he blasted to left.
He watched it go, pointed to a fired-up dugout and rounded the bases for a home run unlike any of the 263 that preceded it.
Twice Alonso had homered against 99.9-mph fastballs in his career, but he had never gotten ahold of one that registered triple digits.
“They don’t round up on those?” Alonso asked with a smile about the near-100s.
Entering play around the league Saturday, there had been 3,625 pitches of at least 100 mph this season.
Just 14 left the park.
Batters had hit .195 against triple-digit heat.
That did not stop Alonso, who drove in two runs against Pérez and scored the third and final one when he worked a walk in the sixth before Jeff McNeil’s double added insurance.
For a second straight season, the Mets’ pending free-agent first baseman will play Game 162 unsure of whether it will launch him into the postseason or free agency.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Alonso said. “This is exciting baseball.”
