MILWAUKEE (AP) — Pete Alonso had a rather disappointing night in what could have been his final game for the New York Mets.

Then with one swing of the bat, everything changed.

The slugger broke out of a lengthy slump by hitting a three-run homer off closer Devin Williams in the ninth inning, putting the Mets ahead for good in a 4-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday in the decisive third game of their N.L. Wildcard series.

That made Alonso the first Major Leaguer to hit a go-ahead homer when his team was trailing in the ninth inning or later in a winner-take-all postseason game, according to OptaSTATS.

“It’s just something you practice in the backyard as a kid,” Alonso said. “As a little kid you go through those scenarios: OK, you’re down by a few runs in the play-offs. Words cannot explain it. This is just unreal.”

Alonso and the Mets advanced to a best-of-five Division Series that began Saturday in Philadelphia against the NL East champion Phillies.

The evening could have ended very differently for Alonso.

Milwaukee took a 2–0 lead in the seventh on back-to-back home runs from pinch-hitter Jake Bauers and Sal Frelick, and threatened to add. The Brewers had runners on second and third with two outs when William Contreras hit an errant pop into the stands that Alonso couldn’t catch against the protective mesh, giving the All-Star catcher another chance to drive in some runs .

“It’s baseball,” Alonso said. “It’s a game of failure. Sometimes that is not the case. Especially in these big games you have to move on to the next field and make a positive impact, do your best, stay true to yourself and execute.”

The defensive play no longer played a role when Edwin Díaz struck out Contreras to end the inning. Alonso then trailed the Mets 2-0, but was threatening in the ninth.

Francisco Lindor had started the rally with a walk on a 3-2 pitch. One out later, Brandon Nimmo singled to put Alonso on base.

The 29-year-old Alonso went deep 226 times in his six years with New York, including a 53-home run season as a rookie in 2019.

“He’s one of the greatest home run hitters in Mets history along with Mike Piazza,” teammate Brandon Nimmo said.

But he hadn’t done much lately. Alonso was struggling late in the season and hadn’t even had an extra base hit since homering on September 19. Nimmo said teammates kept telling Alonso he was one stroke away from turning things around.

Adding to the pressure was the unavoidable fact that Alonso is a free agent. When he stepped to the plate in the ninth inning, he knew it might be his last at-bat in a Mets uniform.

“And now it’s not because he did what big Pete does,” Nimmo said.

What he did was send an opposite-field shot over the right-field wall after a 3-1 changeup from Williams, a two-time NL reliever of the year.

“As soon as I hit him I thought, ‘Oh yeah, no one notices that,'” Alonso said.

An excited Alonso raised his fingers to his mouth in a “chef’s kiss” gesture as he walked around first base. The emotions continued to pour out as the Mets added an insurance run and then closed the door in the bottom of the ninth.

“No one knows until they go through it what that struggle is like,” Nimmo said. “When you’re going through tough times and you haven’t had an extra base hit for a few weeks, three weeks, whatever it has been, you really try to help the team however you can, but it’s not there right now. Like I told you before, you never know when that’s going to happen. This game is really very difficult. It can happen in an instant and it can be very difficult to get out. And it is difficult to maintain your self-confidence.

“So the weight of emotions on him has probably increased over the last three weeks. And the release of that, when you finally get through it – and you get through it in a huge way for your team – it’s hard to even put that into words. I’m sure that’s why he was so emotional.”

As Alonso spoke to reporters during the champagne-soaked celebration in the Mets’ locker room, he was handed a small pumpkin. Alonso called it his “playoff pumpkin” and explained that he and his wife found it while visiting a farm outside Milwaukee when the Mets played here last weekend.

“Nothing says fall more than baseball and pumpkins in the playoffs,” Alonso said.

Thanks to his clutch homer, the Mets might be able to keep playing all Halloween.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB