CLEVELAND — With every step he takes, every move he makes, Pete Alonso offers more bouquets to the Mets and their beleaguered fans. On Monday night at Progressive Field, the entire baseball world witnessed the joy and theatrics that the rookie has brought to Queens.

Alonso shined on his brightest stage yet, winning the Home Run Derby — and the accompanying $1 million prize — by outlasting his fellow stud freshman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., 23-22, after the Blue Jays’ prince put on an epic laser show for the first two rounds.

“Dealt with some adversity but we overcame, and pretty much just survive and advance. That was it,” Alonso said. “But then we hit a sweet spot, and got in a groove for a little while and just carried on through. So it was really special. I’m so blessed.”

Said Alonso’s Mets teammate and fellow All-Star Jeff McNeil: “The show Vlad put on was incredible. I think Pete put on a better one.”

With 18 seconds remaining in his finals round, Alonso smashed a fastball from his pitcher, his cousin Derek Morgan, for a no-doubt-about-it shot into the left-field seats, traveling 429 feet, for the Derby winner. With that, he tossed his bat in the air sky-high, the ultimate bat flip, as the crowd, which had booed him when he eliminated favorite Carlos Santana of the Indians in the first round, saluted the 24-year-old.

“I didn’t think I’d ever be booed at a Home Run Derby, to be honest with you,” Alonso said. “But I guess that’s the hometown home cooking.”

Ironically, Alonso’s parents met in Lancaster, Ohio, about 2 ½ hours from here, and a healthy number of Ohio-based family members sat in the stands and supported him and Morgan, who lives in nearby Copley.

Alonso became the first Met to win this event outright — Darryl Strawberry tied the Angels’ Wally Joyner in 1986 — and the second rookie, following the path blazed by the Yankees’ Aaron Judge in 2017.

For the night, Alonso totaled 57 homers to Guerrero’s 91, and that probably aided Alonso in the end. He benefited from less challenging matchups, and Vladdy Jr. looked close to cooked by the end, his finals total the lowest of his three rounds. Guerrero and the Dodgers’ Joc Pederson went at it in a semifinal showdown that lasted the equivalent of three extra innings — a 60-second swing-off, followed by a pair of three-swing swing-offs — and Guerrero needed each of his 40 homers to edge Pederson and his 39. In the first round, Guerrero set a single-round record of 29 in crushing Oakland’s Matt Chapman that both he and Pederson subsequently matched.

Alonso, meanwhile, advanced to the championship round by outslugging the Braves’ Ronald Acuna Jr., 20-19. In the first round, he disposed Santana, 14-13. Both times, he achieved his goal as his four minutes ticked down to zero, meaning he never had to use his bonus 30 seconds that come with hitting two homers that travel 440 feet or farther

“I’m really happy that I didn’t have to swing a lot going into the extra rounds,” Alonso said. “That’s the one thing that most of my teammates, especially Robbie [Cano] and Todd Frazier and Chili [Davis] — because Chili, he was Yoenis Cespedes’ hitting coach when he won the Derby [with] Oakland. Pretty much they were all just saying conserve as much energy as possible between rounds, hydrate, get electrolytes and keep the body loose, but you don’t need to exert energy taking too many swings. Between the second and third round, we didn’t go down and take any swings. So I feel like conserving energy was huge.”

From his winnings, which nearly double his 2019 Mets salary of $555,000, Alonso has pledged to donate 5 percent each to the Wounded Warrior Project and Tunnel to Towers foundation.

Throw in the fact that Alonso pulverized a camera positioned on the third-base line, and he certainly made his mark. His actions backed up the words he expressed earlier Monday, when he said, “I just feel blessed every single day. It’s almost like I don’t need a cup of coffee to wake up in the morning. I’m just genuinely excited to go to the yard every day.



“I love what I do, and I love the support that the Mets fans give us,” Alonso continued. “I think they are some of the best fans in baseball because whether the team’s doing well or not doing well, they’re still coming out to the games. The amount of passion they have is unbelievable.

“And I think they’re the most loyal fans in baseball, because it’s very easy to hop on a bandwagon — especially, we have the Yankees and they’ve got 27 World Series [titles]. For people to stay true to the Mets and not deviate, I think that’s a sign of loyal fans. Our fan base is unbelievable. I want to be able to show them how much I appreciate them being loyal and as passionate as they are.”

Mission accomplished, once again. What’s next for the Polar Bear? It’s not like the Mets’ overall drudgery gets in his way, right?