A wonderful season for Alonso in a challenging season for Orioles

NEW YORK—One of the great seasons in Orioles’ history is over. Not a great season for the team, but a wonderful season for Pete Alonso.

Alonso finished with 43 home runs, tied with Rafael Palmeiro for eighth most in team history. He had 113 RBIs, the most by an Oriole since Chris Davis’ 117 in 2015.

Both figures led the American League, and Alonso is the first to lead both leagues in RBI.

He picked up a bushel-basket full of awards along the way, a unanimous Most Valuable Oriole selection, the team’s nominee for the Heart and Hustle and Roberto Clemente awards, and the Orioles Advocates Oriole Way Award.

Those are all great, but the reward he most wants is to play in the postseason.

“We had great moments, great individual performances, but on the whole that’s not the standard here,” Alonso said. “That’s unacceptable for us.”

There were plenty of great moments for Alonso. He ended the season with eight home runs in the final 10 games, and hit his 300^th home run at Citi Field, where he played with the New York Mets for seven seasons.”

Because the rest of the American League was so mediocre, the Orioles were mathematically, if not realistically, alive until Thursday when the Chicago White Sox, the third wild-card team, eliminated them with a win over Kansas City.

“There’s a lot of good that happened, but that’s not the expectation,” Alonso said. “That’s not why we’re here. The standard for us is not only make the postseason, but make a run and have a legitimate shot to hold up a trophy at the end of the year. We didn’t even give ourselves an opportunity to enter the dance in October.”

Alonso played in each of the Orioles’ 161 games and stretched his consecutive game total to 577.

“We need to do a better job as players because that’s what it boils down to,” Alonso said.

He finishes with a 4.9 WAR (Wins Above Replacement), the second highest of his career. Only in his rookie season when he hit 53 home runs did he have a higher WAR.

“We should take some time to reflect and just be like: ‘Hey, what do we need? What do we need to do more of?’ Really focus on those things in the off season and then be ready to go when we break camp next year.”

It’s his fourth season of 40 or more home runs and fifth of more than 100 RBIs. His .363 on-base percentage is the best of his career, and his 81 walks are the most he’s had.

“It’s frustrating because there’s no ceiling for the talent we have,” Alonso said. “If you can play clean baseball, that’s the hallmark of a good team. Our talent is phenomenal. It’s just about how can we utilize that and translate the talent into performance on the field.”

While the Orioles have some excellent players, no one performed up to the standard Alonso set. Gunnar Henderson played 158 games and had a 3.3 WAR, but hit 24 home runs, 19 fewer than Alonso, and Coby Mayo, who finished second in RBIs with 63, was 50 behind Alonso for team lead.

On August 31^st, centerfielder Colton Cowser made one of the most important catches in Orioles history, when he robbed Jake McCarthy of a game-ending home run, preserving a 2-1 Orioles win.

That win gave the Orioles a .500 record, 69-69, the first time they’d been at .500 in four months, but instead of capitalizing on what could have been a galvanizing moment, the Orioles lost six straight and nearly fell out of the playoff race.

“We can do a better job on an in-game execution on a consistent basis,” Alonso said. “I think guys can get all the right coaching and direction. What happens from the first pitch to the last pitch between the lines? That’s on the player.”

Alonso blamed himself for several of the key losses.

“Whether it be throwing errors or baserunning mistakes,” he said. “Right off the top of my head, I can think of times where I’m like, ‘Man, if I just didn’t do that, we’d be in a different position.’

“The line drive that [Henderson] hit with the bases loaded, and I got doubled off, and then also [Vladimir Guerrero Jr.] back-picked me. Then there’s a couple of errors … I threw it off the back of the guy’s head.”

Alonso committed a career-low four errors and his defense at first base was considered to be much better than in the past. That’s still not good enough for him.

“If I didn’t make those mistakes we’d be in a different position,” he says. “The talent’s there. If you don’t have talent and then you’re not winning game maybe we just don’t have the personnel, but when you have the personnel to do it, it’s really frustrating.”

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