Jon Meoli: Pete Alonso has given the Orioles his best. They’re on the verge of wasting it.

I’m sure the Orioles worried they might ultimately waste some of the money in Pete Alonso’s five-year, $155 million contract once the aging curve caught up with him.

What they never could have imagined is that they’d get a 2026 season like this one and completely waste it. That’s the reality they’re staring down, and it will be clinched the moment all the American League playoff spots are filled ahead of them.

His impact was plain to see when he stepped to the plate Tuesday and, in creating a career-defining moment for himself, helped flip an Orioles loss into a win. And it’s clear how singular he’s been in that distinction during this team’s underwhelming season.

Alonso’s massive 300th career home run created an iconic moment for him and, I suppose, Mets fans. Unless the Orioles miraculously make the playoffs, his game-tying blast and Coby Mayo’s inside-the-park home run in extra innings will be added to the list of moments that could have defined the Orioles’ season, had they turned it around.

It also pushed him higher up the league leaderboards as one of the most productive hitters in the game. He ended Wednesday’s play 14th among qualified hitters in OPS (.864), ninth in weighted runs created plus (142) and ninth in home runs (37). His 102 RBIs lead the AL.

Since he recalibrated his life to being both a baseball player and a dad at the beginning of May, he’s been even better — fifth in wRC+ (155), fourth in homers (33) and seventh in OPS (.913).

You can understand why Mets fans grew attached to him in the seven years he called Citi Field home and why they alternated between adoration for Alonso and anger at the front office that let him leave for Baltimore.

It’s because he posts and he delivers. He’s done that for the Orioles, and they’re on the cusp of doing absolutely nothing with it this year.

Alonso was signed to add thump to their lineup, protect their young homegrown stars to get them better pitches to hit, and elevate the way the Orioles go about things in the clubhouse. He’s checked boxes one and three, and he can’t really do anything about the second one. Gunnar Henderson isn’t getting pitches to hit because he’s swinging at pitches he can’t.

And Henderson isn’t alone in that. After a 2025 season in which many of the Orioles’ homegrown players underperformed but did so with exculpatory injuries and underlying issues that suggested it wouldn’t last forever, many of them have again failed to kick on. That basically left Alonso and whoever is opposite him on the diamond at third base on a given night — Mayo, Blaze Alexander or Christian Encarnacion-Strand — to carry the offensive load.

Alonso won’t complain. This is what he signed up for, but as he’s said often lately, he also came here to win. He was sold on the contract offer, probably first and foremost, but also on what the Orioles were trying to build.

He’s the only one who’s held up his end of the bargain. He ranks fifth among qualifying hitters in win probability added, which nets out the credits and debits a player’s actions on the field typically have on wins, at 3.18. On the positive side of that ledger, Alonso is third, trailing only presumptive MVPs Pete Crow-Armstrong and Yordan Alvarez. The only other qualifying Orioles hitter on FanGraphs’ leaderboard for the category is Henderson, with a -1.04 WPA.

Based on FanGraphs’ dollar-wins above replacement conversion metric, which approximates what a player would be worth on the free-agent market, Alonso’s performance would be worth $34.2 million this year. His signing bonus and salary combined for 2026 are $31 million.

There’s always a concern when signing a slugger in his 30s that this type of production isn’t going to last. Alonso has made changes to his offseason training over the last few years to help him stay ahead of the aging curve, and there’s nothing under the hood to suggest the benefits from that — which showed in a material uptick in his quality of contact in 2025 — are weakening.

But no one ends up tumbling off the cliff if they can see it fast approaching, so on the off chance Alonso isn’t this kind of player for his entire Orioles career, it’ll be hard not to be disappointed in such an outcome. It should be easy to remember that it wasn’t always like that, and nights like Tuesday will be the first thing that come to mind.

Right now, he is worth every penny. Right now, he is giving the Orioles more than they could have asked for. And right now they need to play perfect baseball for the next nine games and get a lot of help to not completely waste it.