Mets’ Pete Alonso calls batter interference a ‘missed opportunity’ in loss to Astros

Wednesday’s series finale between the Mets and Houston Astros had it all.

There were 18 combined runs, 16 combined walks, a catcher’s interference, plenty of fielding errors and one batter interference from Pete Alonso that could have changed the game in the Mets’ favor.

In the first inning, the Mets had the bases loaded with no outs and Alonso at the plate. The Mets first baseman would hit a 2-2 slider from Cristian Javier with a half swing. The ball traveled to the Astros starter who promptly tossed it to the catcher for one out and then Martin Maldonado threw it to first to try and complete the double play.

The ball would skip past first baseman Mauricio Dubon and into the outfield. It seemed the Mets would get on the board first on the error, but the home plate umpire immediately called the play dead due to batter interference.

“It's the right call,” Mets manager Buck Showalter said after the game. “What are you going to argue? Pretty easy call. I think Pete was out by so much, maybe he was trying to get a call. It was going to be a double play either way.”

“I don’t know, I just hit it back to the pitcher and ran as fast as I could to first base,” Alonso said of the play. “I started up the line a little bit but I thought I got back to the running lane. That’s umpire’s discretion. There’s a little bit of gray area but nothing I could do. Was just trying to react and get to first base as fast as I could.”

The Mets would fail to score in the opening frame, but they’d have plenty of other opportunities.

Against the Astros on Wednesday, the Mets scored eight runs on 10 hits. Alonso would account for two of them after his two-run homer in the sixth inning. But the offensive outburst wasn’t enough for the Mets in the series finale, and the slugging first baseman puts some of the loss on himself.

“Putting up eight runs against that pitching staff over there you know we’re in a good place. We’re putting up runs but the volume of a singular run is wild, it's indescribable,” Alonso said. “You never know how big an extra run could be. I had a missed opportunity in the first and off my second at-bat against Javier. If that’s a sac fly in the first inning, maybe something else happens. Even though we put up a ton of runs. We can always do better to do more.”

The Mets scored 21 runs in the three-games against Houston but came away with just one win. Wednesday was also the seventh time in the Mets’ last 22 games they scored seven or more runs. They are 1-6 in those games.

After an off day, the Mets will travel to Philadelphia to take on the Phillies over the weekend. New York is 3-0 against the Phillies this season, and their three-game sweep of them in Citi Field in late May was the last series the Mets won so it could be a turning point for the organization.

Alonso knows the Mets aren’t where they should be, but he still believes if they can sync up their offense and pitching they can get back into the playoff race.

“Not where we want to be but keep playing hard and playing behind each other and doing the best we can to win ball games,” he said. “We had some missed opportunities on both sides of the ball today and that was the difference maker. We played really well today. We got beat but again we played well and just came up short.”