In 10 games, Pete Alonso has hit five home runs, the second time in his career that he’s started a season that way, as in 2019, the then-rookie made an instant impact with not only the five dingers, but 10 other hits for a .385/.429/.923 start to his career. To start this season, Alonso’s line is at .237/.326/.658. It’s been a weird first couple of weeks.
This isn’t a record-setting start, although Alonso does have as many homers so far as the Guardians, Nationals, and Tigers. Dave Kingman had the most dingerrific start to a Mets season, with seven in the first 10 games in 1976 — he wound up with 37 (of the Mets’ 102 total) home runs, finishing second in the National League to Mike Schmidt’s 38. While the season total for Kingman was first eclipsed by Darryl Strawberry in 1987, and now is just outside the top 10 in Mets history, the 7-in-10 start remains alone at the top, according to Stathead.
With six homers in the first 10 games of a season, we find Ray Knight in 1986 (finished with 11, plus one more in Game 7 of the World Series), John Buck in 2013 (finished with 15, all with the Mets before being traded with Marlon Byrd to the Pirates for Dilson Herrera and Vic Black), and Yoenis Céspedes in 2017 (finished with 17, played only 81 games).
Also with five for a nice 90-homer pace after the season’s opening 10 games? The aforementioned Strawberry on his way to breaking Kingman’s team record in 1987, Gary Carter in 1988 (finished with 11), and Jeff Kent in 1994 (finished with 14 in 107 games before the strike).
What’s next for Alonso, the first Met ever to start two seasons with five dingers in 10 games? He’s already tied for 36th on the team’s list for homers in the first 20 games, and the record there, the one that all Mets fans will want to see fall in the next 10, is shared by Kingman’s 1976 effort and the nine homers that Neil Walker hit to start 2016, on his way to going deep 23 times that year.
Alonso is currently tied for 11th on that list with his seven homers to start 2019, while the list at eight is fascinating, too: Frank Thomas 1962 (finished with 34), Kingman in 1982 (a league-leading 37 that time), Kent in 1994 (14), Todd Hundley in 1994 (16) and 1996 (then team-record 41), Richard Hidalgo in 2004 (and here’s where we note that this is in the player’s first X number of games, not the team’s, because Hidalgo joined the Mets in a June trade for Jeremy Griffiths and David Weathers, having already hit four homers for the Astros — he wound up wiht 21 in 86 games as a Met, still the record for most homers by a player with 145 or fewer games played with the club — Eduardo Escobar is currently at 21 homers in 145 games, and Byrd had 21 in 117, for what it’s worth, while Mo Vaughn is next on whatever this list is at 29 in 166), Carlos Delgado in 2006, and Céspedes in 2016 (31).
We Can Pod It Out 86: Good Day Sunshine