ATLANTA – A soggy Pete Alonso looked around a cheerful and champagne-soaked clubhouse, a sight that had proven unattainable in his first five years with the Mets.

The wait was worth it.

“This is a lot more than I imagined,” Alonso said after the Mets won the first game of a doubleheader with the Braves at Truist Park, clinching a wild-card spot. “This is incredible.”

Eight hundred and forty-six major league games later, the Mets slugger finally had a chance to celebrate an extended season.

Alonso had reached the postseason once, in 2022, when the Mets decided against spraying bottles in each other's faces: They had been caught by the Braves and learned on the final day of the regular season that they would not win the NL East would.

The disappointment meant no party for a wild-card team that was eliminated in the wild-card round by the Padres.

That stuck with Alonso, who referred to his bubbling dry spell in a team meeting two weeks ago.

On Sept. 16, he tried to inspire and convey how much a party like this would mean, an impending free agent desperate to get into the postseason and desperately toasting a season worth celebrating.

The meeting – or perhaps it was the team-wide resilience of a club that dug in early June and managed to escape – worked.

After splitting the doubleheader on Monday, Alonso was in the middle of the celebrations.

“Oh my God,” Alonso said, referring to the Mets in 2024. “Wow. Just wow. This is surreal. The mood is flawless. This is absolutely deserved because we have achieved so much this year.”

That was the theme, with many Mets citing a record that was 24-35 as of June 2nd.

The 89-win club found a rotation that got going, swapped some pieces, added Jose Iglesias and called a meeting in late May that many are calling a turning point.

Alonso didn't have his best season in what may be his final season with the Mets, but he will hit free agency having hit 34 home runs with a .788 OPS and has a chance to improve his record in October.

“At the moment not many people have seen us in this position, especially because we have played 11 games in less than two months,” said Alonso, who has played all 162 games this season. “We answered the bell.”

They need to answer the question again immediately and think the celebration is worth it, even as their playoff run begins Tuesday in Milwaukee.

“I’m just so happy for everyone, from top to bottom,” Alonso said. “I can’t wait until tomorrow.”