The Mets enjoyed a major comeback season in 2022, winning 101 games and getting back to the postseason for the first time in six years.
Armed with the richest owner in baseball, the team debuted future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer, a plethora of free agent signings like Starling Marte and Eduardo Escobar, and boasted their returning stars like Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso, while Brandon Nimmo took home the National League batting title.
But with all of the good vibes from the summer of 2022, including Edwin Diaz’s viral bullpen entrance, incredible comebacks against the rival Phillies, and plenty of other moments, Alonso told SNY that the team didn’t enjoy it enough, particularly down the stretch of the regular season.
“The whole goal is to get to the playoffs after 162 and then capitalize and then obviously compete and win the championship,” Alonso told SNY in an interview airing on Wednesday night's Mets Hot Stove. “I feel like going down that road, once we kind of got halfway through September, as a team I feel like we didn’t have as much fun as we should’ve.”
New York stumbled down the stretch, falling in a critical series to the Braves to lose the NL East, which put the Mets in the three-game Wild Card Series crapshoot, one they lost in a decisive third game to the Padres. One of the most promising Mets seasons in recent memory ended in a whimper, and, in the eyes of Alonso, with not enough enjoyment of the process.
“It’s awesome to work hard, and you work so hard all year long and you’re finally right there close to the finish line, I feel like we didn’t enjoy it as much as we should’ve because in baseball you never know when you can capture magic,” Alonso said. “And I feel like we had it but we didn’t necessarily fully enjoy the success that we had after a long year, because playing the way we did is really hard.”
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