NEW YORK — In the end, there was no communication. No congratulatory phone call, no promise to stay in touch, no warm wishes for the future. Pete Alonso was the ex, the Baltimore Orioles were his new partner, and the New York Mets had moved on. It was their decision to break up.

Alonso was the Mets’ career home run king and a homegrown part of their soul. Last December, the Orioles gave him the long-term commitment the Mets never would — five years, $155 million — in free agency. Alonso talked with some Mets players in Tampa, Fla., where he worked out, and manager Carlos Mendoza came by the gym to say hello. That was enough.

“Having that respect from the guys I was with every day, the guys that I was going to battle with every day with — the manager and other players — having that respect is obviously nice,” Alonso said in the Bronx on Friday, when he returned to New York to face the Yankees.

“But there was no final conversation from a brass or ownership standpoint. Because I think things were kind of progressing with Baltimore and they’re just like, ‘OK, all right.’ The No. 1 thing throughout the whole process (of free agency), when things are so good, you really don’t want to mess that up. You don’t really want to mess up the golden egg, so to speak. You just want to kind of nurture that flowering relationship.”

The Mets let it wilt. Technically, it was Alonso who opted out of the second year of his two-year, $54 million contract. But Alonso’s agent, Scott Boras, knows how it looks when Mets owner Steve Cohen wants something. Boras got a record $765 million from Cohen for Juan Soto. In that context, Alonso’s Orioles guarantee is a rounding error.

David Stearns, the Mets’ president of baseball operations, saw a better future without Alonso. The Mets have two long-term lineup centerpieces, Soto and Francisco Lindor, and to Stearns, that was plenty. He overhauled the roster with short-term bets on big names, and the Mets entered May with the worst record in the majors.

Alonso, meanwhile, smashed an opposite-field, second-deck homer in his first at-bat Friday. He also walked twice and scored both Baltimore runs in a 7-2 Yankees victory. While Alonso is hitting only .203 with five home runs, he entered the series with the best hard-hit rate (55.4 percent) and walk rate (12.8 percent) of his career. There’s more to come.

Pete Alonso demolishes a double-decker opposite-field shot at Yankee Stadium 😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/xddhgTawOU

— MLB (@MLB) May 1, 2026

“If you look at Pete’s underlying numbers, he’s hitting the ball hard, he’s having great at-bats, he’s taking his walks,” manager Craig Albernaz said. “And to me, if he was pressing or trying to do too much, he wouldn’t be walking, he would be chasing at a high clip, he wouldn’t be putting the barrel to the ball. So he’s showing flashes of Pete Alonso that we all know and love.”

Maybe not all — the Mets knew Alonso, but they didn’t love him. Their choice as the opening-day first baseman, Jorge Polanco, had never fielded a ball at the position. He hadn’t played 140 games in a season since 2021, slashing .242/.325/.428 in the four seasons that followed.

At his best, Polanco is solid, not a star, and always something of an injury risk. He got two years and $40 million, played 14 games and is out indefinitely with injuries to his left Achilles and right wrist.

Polanco, of course, is only one part of the messy makeover. Luis Robert Jr., another player with a long injury history, is out with a lumbar spine disc herniation. Bo Bichette ($42 million per year? Really?) has not hit. Neither has Marcus Semien, who didn’t hit much in Texas last season, either. The bullpen has been a bust.

“There’s a lot of new,” Mets starter Clay Holmes said the other night. “I don’t think that’s a hindrance at all, but sometimes, it takes time to get going with each other and feel that whole process out.”

Maybe the Mets needed something radical. They reached the playoffs twice in Alonso’s seven seasons, with a .520 overall winning percentage — an average of 84 victories per year. Cohen didn’t buy the team to win 84 games a year.

But when you swing big, there’s a chance you’ll whiff. And the Mets have whiffed badly so far, arriving in Anaheim, Calif., this weekend at 10-21.

“On paper, that’s not good,” Alonso said. “But I remember in 2024, things were very bleak and whatever from an outside perspective. Baseball is a long season. It’s a marathon. And you look back at the 2024 Mets, I mean, that could be a perfect example where it’s like, ‘Hey, yeah, it’s bad.’ But there’s always — I mean, there’s five months left of the season. So there’s always time.”

That’s what’s called the high road, and it’s no surprise Alonso took it. He did everything right in New York — accountable, honest and, more than anything else, endearingly earnest. You got the sense that he really cared about what the Mets represented.

When the Mets showed little interest in him after 2024, Alonso took their short-term offer and responded as always: He posted. He played in 1,008 of 1,032 games as a Met. The rotating cast of Mets managers — Mickey Callaway (remember him?), Luis Rojas, Buck Showalter, Mendoza — always knew what to expect.

In every full season with the Mets, Alonso hit 34 to 53 homers and drove in 88 to 131 runs. Now, besides Soto, the Mets are starved for power.

Returning to New York, Alonso said, the memories are more about his family than his old team. Last Sept. 21, the same day he played his final home game as a Met, Alonso and his wife, Haley, welcomed their first child, a boy named Teddy. Alonso wears No. 25 in honor of his birth year.

“The last time we were here, I just remember going to Mount Sinai with my wife and coming out as a family of three,” Alonso said. “So for me, it’s special because you look down memory lane, there’s a lot of great baseball memories, but also a lot of great personal memories, too.

“So the first thing I thought, I was like, Man, like I remember the last time we were actually staying in the city, it was after (an 11-inning) game and it’s like: We welcome life in the world.”

Life was always going to be very different for Alonso. His baseball life didn’t have to be, but that’s how the Mets wanted it.

“I’m in the perfect place for me,” Alonso said. “And I feel nothing but gratitude and just excitement every single day to come to the yard and play with this team. So I’m happy to look back on the memories, and you can’t erase history or what happened, because I enjoyed my time here in New York. But I’m also really stoked to be here and represent Baltimore.”