The Polar Bear's big afternoon gets the Orioles back on track in the playoff race.
Pete Alonso has never been shy about speaking his mind, but after Sunday's win over the Rangers, he made a pretty simple argument about leadership. Eventually, you have to back up what you say.
Alonso had plenty to back up after his best game since joining the Baltimore Orioles.
He reached base in all five of his plate appearances, hit two home runs, drove in four runs and scored three times in Baltimore's 10-5 win over Texas. The victory snapped a three-game losing streak and kept the Orioles within two games of the final American League Wild Card spot.
For Alonso, though, the performance carried a little more weight because of what he believes his role on this team should be.
"I want to be a player of substance -- you can't talk and be vocal if you're not [producing]," Alonso told reporters postgame, according to MLB.com's Dave Sessions. "In order to be a leader, you've got to have done it -- and you have to be continuously doing it."
Sunday was a pretty good example of that philosophy.
Alonso didn't wait for the game to come to him. He singled in the first inning and then hustled all the way from first to third when Jackson Holliday turned a gap shot into a double. Both eventually scored, giving Baltimore an early lead and putting pressure on the Rangers before Alonso's first home run even left the yard.
That homer came in the second inning against Kumar Rocker, a 393-foot shot that reached halfway up the left-field foul pole. Two innings later, with Baltimore's pitching staff beginning to navigate trouble, Alonso came back with a 404-foot home run against Jordan Montgomery.
The Orioles needed both.
Craig Albernaz told reporters postgame that Alonso has been "a force" offensively this season, but Sunday showed how quickly he can change the game when everything comes together.
"He's been able to kind of change the game himself," Albernaz told reporters via MASN. "Not to mention what he brings to the culture and the clubhouse and [from] the leadership standpoint."
That leadership mattered especially after Baltimore dropped the first two games of the series. The Orioles are entering the stretch of the season with virtually no room for wasted opportunities, and Albernaz described the remainder of the schedule as a "50-game sprint" after the trade deadline.
Alonso sees it similarly.
"Destiny's in our own hands," he said postgame on MASN. "If we play well and win, then we're in."
Baltimore needs production, and it needs players willing to carry responsibility when the games matter most. Sunday didn’t require much explaining beyond that. Alonso answered it by changing the game at the plate and letting the result speak for itself.
The Orioles will now head to Minnesota for another series against a team in the Wild Card race. There won't be much time to enjoy Sunday's win, but that's part of the challenge Alonso was talking about.
