{"id":346346,"date":"2026-09-14T14:29:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T14:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/346346\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T14:29:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T14:29:02","slug":"orioles-mets-series-preview-the-polar-bear-returns-to-queens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/346346\/","title":{"rendered":"Orioles-Mets series preview: The Polar Bear returns to Queens"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a series that doesn\u2019t matter for the standings, there\u2019s going to be an electric atmosphere at CitiField as the Orioles visit the Mets. The Polar Bear is back.<\/p>\n

Pete Alonso, the Mets\u2019 all-time home run leader, will face his former club for the first time since signing with the Orioles last winter. Alonso debuted with the Mets in 2019 and was an instant fan favorite, winning NL Rookie of the Year that season to kick off his seven-year stretch as one of the most prolific hitters in franchise history. He clubbed 34 or more homers in every non-covid season, posted a career .857 OPS, and was a five-time All-Star who twice led the Mets to the postseason. Mets fans have been waiting all year to welcome back Alonso, and he should receive a huge reaction (overwhelmingly positive, I would assume) when he steps to the plate as a visiting player.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure Pete wishes his return to Queens was coming amidst his team\u2019s late-season surge to the postseason. Instead, his Orioles, while technically better than the Mets, will join them in watching the playoffs from the couch. Still, Alonso, in his first season as an Oriole, has been everything the O\u2019s could\u2019ve hoped for and more. He\u2019s been a leader on and off the field, he\u2019s won over fans with his durability and heart, and his on-field production has been stellar, with 35 homers, a league-leading 100 RBIs, and better-than-advertised defense. He\u2019s a lock to be named the Most Valuable Oriole this week.<\/p>\n

Alonso\u2019s departure is still a source of consternation for many Mets fans, part of a failed attempt by the front office over the offseason to shake up the core of a team that disappointed in 2025. The Mets parted ways with a slew of their most-tenured players, including Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil, and Edwin D\u00edaz, all of whom had spent six years or more with the club. They tried to retool by bringing in veterans like Freddy Peralta, Marcus Semien, Devin Williams, and Luke Weaver, along with their splashiest signing, a three-year, $126 million deal for former Blue Jays star Bo Bichette.<\/p>\n

Instead of rejuvenating the franchise, the shakeup made the Mets even worse. They\u2019ve essentially been out of contention since April, when they suffered a 12-game losing streak that dropped them to 7-14, and they\u2019ve already topped last season\u2019s loss total with 80. Manager Carlos Mendoza was fired in June. Bichette, Semien, and Williams have struggled, and so did Peralta, who has since been traded away, as has Weaver. Alonso\u2019s replacement at first base, veteran Jorge Polanco, posted a .431 OPS and an astounding negative-1.4 WAR in 37 games before suffering a season-ending injury. For a team with the second highest payroll in baseball at $345 million, it\u2019s been a disastrous season.<\/p>\n

The Mets still have star power, led by one of the game\u2019s greatest hitters, Juan Soto, who missed a month with a calf strain but has 25 homers and a .928 OPS. Five-time All-Star shortstop Francisco Lindor is having a mediocre season after suffering a hamate injury in the spring. And the Mets boast some intriguing young talent, including outfielders Carson Benge and A.J. Ewing and right-hander Nolan McLean. The 25-year-old McLean, an Orioles third-round draft pick in 2022, didn\u2019t sign with the club after the O\u2019s balked at the results of his physical. The Mets drafted him the following year and he has a 2.98 ERA in 37 career MLB starts. I\u2019m sure Mike Elias wishes he had made a different decision.<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s only one player who\u2019s going to be on every fan\u2019s mind for this series, and that\u2019s the Polar Bear. Alonso is sitting on 299 career home runs, and if he can\u2019t hit #300 in Baltimore, the most fitting place for him to do so would be at his longtime home of CitiField, where he\u2019s crushed 123 career dingers. If he does so, expect Mets fans to give him a long and loud standing ovation. He deserves it.<\/p>\n

Game 1: Monday, 7:10 PM, MASN<\/p>\n

RHP Brandon Young (9-4, 3.71) vs. RHP Jonah Tong (2-1, 4.80)<\/p>\n

As I wrote in Bird Droppings<\/a>, I would go ahead and shut down Young for the season if I were in charge, but nobody listens to me (rightly so, usually). Young\u2019s career-high innings count is up to 140.2 and he has looked fatigued in his last few starts, so there\u2019s little reason to push him any further with the O\u2019s out of contention. Still, the 28-year-old righty has gone above and beyond what any O\u2019s fans expected from him this season, emerging as the savior of the rotation after Zach Eflin\u2019s season-ending injury. The Orioles are 18-7 in Young\u2019s starts and he nearly always pitches well enough to win. Only once in his his 25 starts has he given up more than four earned runs, and that was in his most recent outing, when the Guardians tagged him for six.<\/p>\n

The Ontario-born Tong, nicknamed \u201cThe Canadian Cannon\u201d according to Baseball Reference, will be making just his second start of the year and seventh of his career. He ranked as the Mets\u2019 #5 prospect last year before graduating from the list. Tong has an unorthodox, over-the-top delivery that has helped him rack up the strikeouts in the minors \u2014 a career 12.8 K\/9 rate \u2014 but he\u2019s not had much success in his brief MLB career, failing to throw a quality start yet. Of course that means he\u2019s going to throw seven shutout innings against the Orioles.<\/p>\n

Game 2: Tuesday, 7:10 PM, MASN<\/p>\n

RHP Shane Baz (6-15, 4.05) vs. LHP Sean Manaea (5-7, 4.79)<\/p>\n

The baseball gods smiled upon Baz last week against Cleveland when he got a win despite giving up five runs. After all the games in which he\u2019s pitched brilliantly but was saddled with a loss or a no-decision because of a lack of run support, he was long overdue for that kind of good fortune. Dare I wonder if the Orioles\u2019 offense can manage to put up two consecutive high-scoring games with Baz on the mound? That\u2019s probably too much to ask, but miracles can happen.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll be facing the veteran lefty Manaea, who began the season in the bullpen but shifted back to his more familiar starting role in mid-June. A former first-round pick of the Royals, Manaea has put together a solid 11-year career, but not recently. He has a 5.06 ERA in his last two seasons, and he\u2019s allowed four runs or more in each of his last five starts. Pete Alonso has one career homer against him, in 2023 when Alonso was on the Mets and Manaea on the Giants, so maybe this will be the night for Pete to hit #300.<\/p>\n

Game 3: Wednesday, 7:10 PM, ESPN<\/p>\n

RHP Chris Bassitt (7-5, 4.88) vs. RHP Robert Stock (1-3, 5.93)<\/p>\n

Bassitt won\u2019t be celebrated at CitiField like Alonso will, but he had a solid (albeit brief) stint with the Mets in 2022, when he went 15-9 with a 3.42 ERA in 30 starts. Of course, he also ended their season by losing the sudden-death Game 3 of the Wild Card Series to the Padres, so maybe he\u2019s not that fondly remembered by Mets fans. He also won\u2019t be fondly remembered by Orioles fans after this year, as an injury-marred, mostly ineffective, $18.5 million roster filler. But somebody\u2019s got to pitch these last few games, so Bassitt might as well be one of them. Bassitt has been hit hard by Lindor, who is 5-for-17 lifetime against him, but he\u2019s held Marcus Semien \u2014 who was once involved in the same trade as Bassitt in 2014 \u2014 to a 1-for-12 performance.<\/p>\n

Robert Stock has had one of the most well-traveled paths of anyone through professional baseball. A second-round pick of the Cardinals in 2009, he shuffled through five different organizations before finally making his MLB debut nine years later, then cycled through four more teams in the next three years before pitching in Korea in 2022, the independent leagues in 2023, and Mexico in 2024, then returning to the majors. The 36-year-old has been released three times, claimed on waivers four times, and signed as a minor league free agent seven times, and he\u2019s currently in his second stint with the Mets. It isn\u2019t going particularly well, as his 5.93 ERA can attest, but you have to admire his never-give-up attitude.<\/p>\n

What do you expect from this series, Camden Chatters? Will Pete hit his 300th home run in front of his longtime fans, or will it wait until he returns to Baltimore this weekend?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a series that doesn\u2019t matter for the standings, there\u2019s going to be an electric atmosphere at CitiField…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[129648,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-346346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-baltimore-orioles-game-information","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}