The frustration of the 2023 season seems to be getting to Pete Alonso.
The Mets first baseman raised some eyebrows Friday night against the Cardinals, when he took the ball of Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn's first hit and tossed it over the net into the crowd -- hardly standard practice in the middle of an inning.
The hit was a chopper down the third-base line that ended in a haywire throw Alonso had to lay out in front of to stop. After a long pause in which Alonso confirmed timeout was called, he threw it into the stands, much to the chagrin of the Cardinals faithful.
The first hit of many to come for Masyn! #STLCards pic.twitter.com/e6Da3mGwde
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) August 19, 2023
According to Cardinals reporter Jeff Jones, the Cardinals dugout got into it with Alonso, with Miles Mikolas, Willson Contreras, and Nolan Gorman chirping at Alonso enough that an umpire told them to cut it out.
MORE: Everything to know about top Cardinals prospect Masyn Winn
Evidently, their message got through to Alonso, who expressed regret for his actions after the Mets' 7-1 victory.
"I was like, 'Oh, God,'" Alonso told reporters after the game about how he felt when he realized what he had done. "That was a huge mistake. Not a fun one to make. I feel awful about it."
Alonso wasn't done apologizing yet. He also sent an autographed bat and a bottle of "1942" Don Julio tequila to Winn as a gesture, per Mike Puma.
The good news is that things had a happy ending. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Derrick Goold posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the crowd convinced the fans who caught the ball to return it to the field with chants of "give it back."
Pete Alonso mistakenly threw the ball from Masyn Winn's first-career hit into the stands.
— SNY (@SNYtv) August 19, 2023
The fan who got the ball has given it to security to big cheers from the Busch Stadium crowd. pic.twitter.com/Jb6o04wxKz
And Winn didn't harbor any ill will toward Alonso, who was apologetic to the rookie throughout the rest of the game.
"He apologized on first (base), and when he got to second later, he apologized as well," Winn explained. "Complete accident. I thought it was quite funny. Especially after we got the ball back, I thought it was a little more funny."
It was an eventful night for Winn. In addition to his first career hit, he also raised eyebrows with his arm, which was a calling card of his in the minors. Winn made a diving stab deep in the hole and threw a 91.8 mph rocket to first, breaking the Cardinals record in the Statcast era on the second throw of his young career.
Winn joins the Reds' Elly De La Cruz as an incredibly impressive athletic shortstop to start making his rounds this year. Much like De La Cruz, he has shown a lot about which to be excited in a minute sample size.
The Mets and Cardinals play a weekend set in St. Louis that will conclude Sunday afternoon. We'll see if frustration continues to roil as two teams continue to toil on in a season they'd both rather forget sooner than later.