Ponies' Alonso rips first two Double-A homers
Peter Alonso has only been at Double-A for a week, but he's already making his presence felt.The Mets' 10th-ranked prospect blasted his first two Eastern League homers on Wednesday, extending his hitting streak to seven games and powering Double-A Binghamton to a 5-1 victory over Erie at NYSEG Stadium.
Peter Alonso has only been at Double-A for a week, but he's already making his presence felt.
The Mets' 10th-ranked prospect blasted his first two Eastern League homers on Wednesday, extending his hitting streak to seven games and powering Double-A Binghamton to a 5-1 victory over Erie at NYSEG Stadium.
Gameday box score
"It's been a nice adjustment so far and I'm happy to be up here," Alonso said. "It's exciting to go on a playoff run and try to win a championship."
Binghamton already had scored twice in the opening inning on
"First, it was a fastball strike, then two sliders for balls and I was like, 'All right, he's got to come to me,'" Alonso said. "He threw a fastball and I got good wood on it. He's a hard thrower, so I let my hands go and it went over."
Alonso struck out in his next at-bat against Baez (0-1) before leading off the bottom of the sixth against right-hander
"I just wanted to see what he was throwing, looking for something out over the plate," Alonso said. "Then he got me with a few strikes soft and away, and typically the pattern for me is soft away, hard in. He threw me a sinker in, I got my barrel to it and it went over the fence. It was a good result, stuck with my plan of not trying to do too much."
The 2016 second-round pick owns a healthy .333/.353/.667 batting line through 34 plate appearances with the Rumble Ponies, but he was happy to get his first Double-A homers out of the way after blasting 16 in 82 games with Class A Advanced St. Lucie. He even got some fortuitous advice from a teammate.
"[Binghamton pitcher]
• Get tickets to a Rumble Ponies game »
Despite his success during his first stint in the pitcher-friendly Florida State League -- his 16 homers are still tied for the lead, while his .878 OPS would rank second if he had enough plate appearances to qualify -- Alonso said he wasn't expecting to see Binghamton until next year. He got the good news during a rain delay in Port Charlotte on Aug. 23 in a game that eventually was postponed.
"Manager Chad Kreuter called a team meeting after he had just gotten done talking with the GM," Alonso said. "He gave us two announcements: the first was a doubleheader [the next day] and the second was that Alonso's going to Double-A. After that, people were extremely happy, congratulating me and stuff like that. It was a really good feeling. I was honestly shocked."
Binghamton starter Mickey Jannis (8-7) continued a strong recent stretch by allowing one run on seven hits while striking out three over 7 2/3 innings. He's given up four earned runs over his last 29 innings.
Mets No. 13 prospect
Chris Tripodi is an editor for MiLB.com. Follow him on Twitter @christripodi.