Game 3 between the Mets and the Brewers contained a little bit of everything Thursday night — a pitching duel, back-to-back homers on back-to-back pitches and, perhaps most importantly, a thrilling finish when Pete Alonso drilled a go-ahead three-run homer in the ninth.
And all of that translated into record ratings during a historic wild-card round for ESPN.
The Mets-Brewers game averaged 4.017 million viewers and peaked at 5.745 million at 9:45 p.m., according to ESPN, to mark the network’s best ratings for an MLB game since the 2021 wild-card game between the Yankees and Red Sox.
ESPN added that the Wild Card Series generated its most viewers ever with an average of 2.823 million — a 25 percent increase from the 2023 version of the round, according to the network.
The next round of the postseason shifts to Fox and TBS for the NLCS and ALCS, respectively, before returning to Fox for the World Series.
Nevertheless, the results of the wild-card round featured plenty of compelling storylines for ESPN to capitalize on.
The upstart Tigers swept the Astros in Houston while the Royals did the same to the Orioles in Baltimore to start their first postseason appearance since 2015.
The Mets — with their season seemingly all but over before the calendar even flipped to June — continued their surprising turnaround with a stunning comeback in what could have been the final inning of their season.
The time the Mets-Brewers broadcast peak was right around Alonso’s homer and the aftermath of the most significant blast in a career already filled with them, as Jesse Winker followed by getting hit by a pitch, stealing second and eventually scoring when Starling Marte singled.
Then, in the bottom half of the frame, starter David Peterson worked around a leadoff single and induced a series-ending double play to spark the second champagne-filled celebration in five days — with the first following Game 2 of their Monday doubleheader in Atlanta, when the Mets’ win to start the day secured their spot in the postseason.
The Mets will meet the Phillies in the NLDS starting Saturday, with Kodai Senga — making just his second start of the season after sustaining a calf strain in his first back in July — opening for the Mets against Zack Wheeler at Citizens Bank Park.
