In his seven seasons with the New York Mets, Pete Alonso established himself as not only one of baseball’s best sluggers but one of the best hitters in franchise history. Following the 2025 season, the Mets failed to re-sign Alonso, who ended up with the Baltimore Orioles.
During a loss to the Chicago Cubs, fans at New York’s Citi Field made sure that anyone watching the game knew how much Alonso was missed.
Stats are accurate through play on Wednesday, June 24.
New York Mets Fans Loudly Chanted for Pete Alonso During Loss
The Mets fell 10-5 to the Cubs in the third game of a four-game series on Wednesday, June 24. The loss, New York’s fifth in a row, moved the Mets to 34-46 on the season.
During the ninth inning of the game, the Citi Field crowd was heard loudly and persistently chanting Alonso’s name.
Alonso has hit 18 home runs and produced a .253/.341/.474 slash line in 82 games with the Orioles. That far exceeds the .214/.265/.371 and 11 home runs hit by New York’s first basemen in 2026.
Interestingly, though, the chants for Alonso were not triggered by something that happened at the plate. Rather, it was a particularly ugly game by the Mets’ defense that got the Citi Field faithful chanting for the Polar Bear.
The Mets Struggled Mightily on Defense, Especially at First Base
To say that the Mets had a defensive meltdown against the Cubs would be an insult to defensive meltdowns everywhere. In total, New York committed six errors. All six errors were committed by the infield. The Met announcers, never known to sugarcoat a bad performance, called the team out during the game.
Each starting infielder made at least one error, while second baseman Marcus Semien and first baseman Mark Vientos made two. The first was a throwing error, made immediately after a diving stop. Vientos’ throw got away from pitcher, A.J. Minter. The play, which allowed Chicago’s Pedro Ramírez to score from second, was ruled a throwing error on Vientos.
The second error triggered the chants. That came when Vientos couldn’t handle a sharp grounder with two outs in the ninth inning. That opened the door for three more runs to score. With that, Vientos’ two errors led to four unearned Chicago runs, turning a close 6-5 game into a 10-5 blowout.
Certainly, Vientos was far from the only Met to struggle with the glove against the Cubs. But what makes his issues worse is that “run prevention” was a term used by the Mets’ front office during the team’s negotiations with him. So, even before Alonso signed with the Orioles, there was already plenty of speculation that his time with the Mets was over.
To be fair, defense has never been a strength of Alonso’s game, and he was bad in 2025. That said, when you’re concerned enough about defense (at a non-premium position) to let one of baseball’s best sluggers go, it puts the team under a microscope. And when the team is struggling, the scrutiny only gets more intense, particularly when we remember the offensive gap between Alonso and New York’s first basemen.
In other words, if the Mets let Alonso walk because of his defense, then the defense at his position needs to be air-tight in the aftermath. When it’s not, the fans are going to be even more likely to make their frustrations heard.
Mets’ Fans Make Feelings Known During Ugly Loss