Pete Alonso Is Keeping the Orioles in the Playoff Hunt
As Baltimore fights to stay alive in a tight Wild Card race, Alonso has been exactly the kind of player the Orioles are paying him to be.
August has been quite the month for Baltimore Orioles fans. The roller coaster ride of emotions that Birdland has endured has probably taken several years off of all our lives.
At the beginning of the month, fans said goodbye to a franchise cornerstone with Adley Rutschman’s trade to Beantown. The player whose debut signified the end of a long rebuild in Baltimore back in 2022 and who became the face of the team was traded in-division, maximizing the number of times fans will see him playing against them.
Following the trade deadline, the direction of the team was unclear. After receiving a haul of prospects in return for Rutschman, and with the team being on the outside looking in at the postseason field, would the O’s pack it in the rest of the year or use the sting of the deadline as motivation to start playing some good baseball?
Now, as the calendar has flipped from August to September, the Orioles have made it clear that they are going for the playoffs. The catalyst for this push has been their major offseason acquisition, Pete Alonso.
The 31-year-old was one of the best offensive players in baseball throughout August, if not the best. At a time when the team needed a leader, the new guy the front office paid to be a leader showed up and shined.
With just under a month left in the regular season, can Alonso lead a team that sold at the deadline to the playoffs?
The Passing of the Mantle
In the offseason, Alonso was brought in to provide a veteran presence in a locker room that was struggling to find its next gear. For a group that failed several times to win a playoff game, Alonso’s pedigree was hopefully going to be the spark needed to get this group deep into the playoffs.
However, a disappointing first half of the season made it seem like the Orioles would have to wait another year to test Alonso’s impact in the postseason. After they traded Rutschman away, that theory felt all but certain.
When things looked bleak, the team needed someone to take command and stop the rolling snowball before it turned into an avalanche. Besides, the team was only a few games out of the final Wild Card spot.
With the team in need of a leader, Alonso stepped up. The former Florida Gator produced one of the best offensive months across the entire league.
While battling a calf injury, the righty slugger produced a .333/.407/.619 slashline in August, good enough for a 1.026 OPS. Alonso also recorded a .435 wOBA and staggering 186 wRC+. By many metrics, he was the best right-handed hitter in the American League in August.
Those gaudy numbers were the result of an incredibly strong stretch between Aug. 9 and Aug. 26. In 16 games, Alonso slugged nine home runs with 20 RBIs and a whopping .316 wRC+. Those numbers could have been even higher if he had not been robbed of another home run against the Yankees (that was clearly fair, in my unbiased opinion).
It is also important to note that Alonso was not recording these stats by fluke. Of his nine homers, five of them would have been homers in every stadium. It is not overembelishing to say Alonso was seeing beach balls out of opposing pitchers’ hands.
Leading the Locker Room
While the 32-year-old is having one of the best seasons of his career in his first year in Baltimore, the impact of his presence extends beyond the foul lines.
Throughout every interview Alonso has done since he signed with the team, his tone has remained constant. Winning the next one is all that matters.
As Alonso plays through his eighth season, the former NL Rookie of the Year has already seen and accomplished so much. Deep playoff runs and numerous accolades have provided the first baseman with a high amount of experience for someone entering his age-32 season.
That experience has positioned Alonso to help the Orioles’ core get over the hump of winning a playoff game. No matter if you are on a winning or losing streak, Alonso has reiterated that once the 27th out is recorded, the most important thing is the next game.
Other O’s players have voiced their appreciation for the former Met’s leadership. Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson recently shared that Alonso has helped him work through a tough season.
The best way to get a new locker room to buy into your mindset is to lead by example. Coming from the Big Apple to Charm City, the change in environments could have proven to be challenging.
Instead of being shocked by the relocation, Alonso got right to work on his craft. Earlier this season, local media caught up with the slugger working on his swing in the batting cages nearly an hour after the team won 7-4 over the Marlins.
To achieve their goal of bringing a World Series trophy back to Baltimore, the core has to work to find their next gear. Alonso knows that the only way that will be achieved is by doing the work day in and day out.
Creating a Legacy
With the final month of the regular season underway, the Orioles are in a tight race for the final Wild Card spot. In competition with Cleveland, Texas, Toronto, Seattle and Minnesota, the Orioles will have to play their best ball of the year to make the postseason.
Whether or not the Orioles make the playoffs, the 2026 regular season will likely not be looked back on as anybody’s favorite. Considering where this team’s expectations lay back in the spring, squeaking into the final Wild Card spot will likely not be viewed as a success.
Following the Adley Rutschman trade, the Orioles farm system features several intriguing arms in Anthony Eyanson and Kyson Witherspoon that could take their rotation to another level. The farm also has depth that could be used to trade for major league talent.
With all the question marks swirling around the 2026-27 offseason in terms of the collective bargaining agreement, the offseason also provides questions for the Orioles. What direction will the front office go in?
Even though it may be a while until fans get an answer to that big question, the team has undoubtedly found their leader for not just their playoff push in 2026, but for their success in the years to come.
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Written by
Tommy is an avid fan of baseball, especially in the Charm City. Tommy covers the Orioles for Just Baseball with the dream of working full time…