Pete Alonso cites fictional coach, unhappy with Mets change
Share this post:
NEW YORK — Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor learned from phones messages that the New York Mets had fired hitting coach Chili Davis and assistant Tom Slater, a move that left players unhappy.
New York made the announcement late Monday night, two days after Alonso started to publicly mention the positive assistance of a new batting instructor — someone who, apparently, is fictional.
The sudden moves, uncommon for this early in a season, were announced after a 6-5 loss at St. Louis.
“It broke my heart. I was sad,” Lindor said. “It hurt me a little bit.”
After Saturday night’s 5-4 win at Philadelphia, had Alonso made a curious reference to the contributions of a new coach.
“We just made a nice, new hire, Donnie,” Alonso said then. “He’s a nice — he’s a great hitting/slash approach coach. Donnie’s been great helping the team. I think Luis forget to mention Donnie. Donnie really helped us today, too.”
Asked to explain further, Alonso said: “He’s a new hire. He’s our like mental-slash-approach coach. I feel like we had a really cool collective like team approach today, and Donnie helped us out, for sure.”
Pushed for Donnie’s name, Alonso said: “I got to ask that, I got to ask Chili — oh, Stevenson, I think that’s it.”
Following Alonso to the interview chair, Michael Conforto smiled when asked.
“Donnie’s a new guy. He made an appearance today at our hitter’s meeting. He’s all about the approach,” Conforto said. “He’s a hitting approach guy. He’s a guy that just gets the boys fired up and ready to go.”
Alonso brought the mystery man again after Sunday night’s 8-7 victory.
“He had some guys in the cage and we were just focusing on ripping heaters,” Alonso said. “And that’s what we did today. We were focused on ripping the fastball around the yard and ripping the heater today was the main focus. We put a lot of runs on the board and we were really locked in. He had some really good words of advice and, yeah, I mean it’s awesome.”
Asked Tuesday about whether his references to a different hitting coach didn’t help Davis’ situation, Alonso replied: “I’m not going to talk about that.”
Acting general manager Zack Scott also refused to address the mysterious coach, Mr. Stevenson.
“You’d have to ask the players about Donnie,” he said Monday night.
Davis didn’t blame Alonso’s and Conforto’s comments for his departure.
“The players were having fun, and I know they didn’t mean any harm,” Davis was quoted as saying by the New York Post. “It was a fun time for them, but it probably didn’t help. People were just trying to loosen up as a group and it worked that night. They went out and put some runs on the board. I am all for them enjoying the game.”