Jesse Winker couldn’t have picked a better moment to hit his first home run in the orange and blue than on Wednesday.
The outfielder launched a walk-off solo shot into the left field stands, and in a moment of pure jubilation, stopped before reaching first base, pumped his fist and launched his helmet and elbow guard before enjoying the trip around the bases in the 4-3 win over the Orioles.
“That was crazy. I blacked out, 100 percent. I still can’t believe that. That’s unreal,” Winker told SNY’s Steve Gelbs on the field after the homer.
Winker had come in as a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the ninth with the goal of simply “trying to get on for the boys.”
“I’ve got [Francisco Lindor] coming up behind me, and then… it went out. I don’t even know,” he said.
The outfielder had come to the Mets in late July before the trade deadline in a deal with the Nationals.
Winker entered the game hitting .275 with 14 hits in 51 at-bats since joining the Mets.
He was still riding the high of the game-winning home run when he spoke with Gelbs on the field.
“This place is lit. This place is unreal,” Winker said. “I love this s–t. We need everyone, so we appreciate y’all. Happy to be on this side. Let’s go Mets!”
The victory was the second time during the series with the Orioles that the Mets have benefited from late-game heroics to pull out a needed win.
Winker wasn’t the only one riding the high of the victory on Wednesday afternoon in Queens.
The Mets celebrated the moment by putting up the “We back up” meme on the Citi Field video board and added a photoshopped Mets hat on top of Idris Elba’s character from “The Wire.”
The win over the Orioles comes amid a tough stretch of the season for the Mets, who face the Padres next.
It also comes a day after the Orioles trolled the Mets on X during Tuesday night’s game, by calling them the “New York Mess” in a post following a series of brutal errors in the middle contest of the series.
