NEW YORK — Not dead yet.
The playoff odds matter little to the Orioles now. With a week and a half left to play in the regular season and ground to make up in the wild-card race, they need wins any way they can get them. The rest is out of their hands.
Baltimore did its part this week in Queens, beating the New York Mets, 7-1, on Wednesday to complete a three-game sweep and pull to within two and a half games of a wild-card spot. Pete Alonso continued his Citi Field revenge tour with his second home run of the series, but he was far from alone; Christian-Encarnacion-Strand, Jeremiah Jackson and Samuel Basallo each left the yard as well to put the game out of reach early.
For Alonso, the home run capped an eventful series against his former team, in which he received a tribute video, several standing ovations and a curtain call for hitting his 300th career homer — a blast that tied Tuesday’s game in the ninth before Baltimore went on to win in extra innings. He didn’t wait long for No. 301, reaching the second deck in left field with a 413-foot homer in his first at-bat Wednesday for his 37th of the season.
All four Orioles home runs came off right-hander Xzavion Curry — recalled for a spot start after Robert Stock hit the injured list with numbness in his fingers — over the first three innings, giving another former Met, Chris Bassitt, plenty of breathing room to punish his old team as well.
Bassitt tied his season high with 6 2/3 innings, allowing one run on five hits and a walk with six strikeouts. Second baseman Marcus Semien drove in the only run in the fourth. The 37-year-old right-hander has pitched into the sixth inning or later in each of his seven starts since returning from back surgery Aug. 14, posting a 3.76 ERA over that span.
The Orioles’ bullpen was equally impressive. Anthony Nunez, acquired from the Mets in the Cedric Mullins trade last year, replaced Bassitt and got the final out of the seventh. Josh Walker, another former Met, then pitched the eighth for his third appearance of the series, and Yennier Cano tossed a scoreless ninth.
Encarnacion-Strand doubled, and Basallo drove him in with an RBI single in the ninth to put the Orioles’ seventh run up on the board, matching their total from Tuesday’s game in two fewer innings.
The win helped the Orioles (75-78) inch closer to the third and final American League wild-card spot, now occupied by the Chicago White Sox after the Cleveland Guardians beat them Wednesday afternoon to grab the AL Central lead.
The Orioles have nine games left to play, starting with a weekend series against the first-place Milwaukee Brewers that begins Friday and culminates with a Sunday Night Baseball game nationally broadcast on NBC. Neither team has announced its probable pitchers for the series.
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