You can’t keep a good man – or in this case, a good pitcher – down.
It got hairy real early for surging Mets starting pitcher Nolan McLean during Thursday afternoon’s home game against the Detroit Tigers. With two outs in the top of the first inning, tall lefty Gage Workman launched a McLean sweeper over the fence in left-center for a three-run homer.
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McLean wasn’t fazed. In his words, he “just had to find what was working.”
Throughout the next six innings, the 24-year-old righty hurler reminded everyone why he is considered one of the most promising young pitchers in MLB.
Even factoring in the early mistake, McLean’s final stats were impressive. Seven full innings, seven strikeouts, six hits, and three walks across 93 pitches is the type of efficient line which aces record and bullpens greatly appreciate.
By the time McLean left the mound in the middle of the seventh inning, the game was already out of reach with the Mets leading 7-3. Juan Soto led off the bottom of the seventh with a solo shot to deep center to punctuate that fact. As McLean carved up the Tigers lineup, the Mets batting order burst into life. Carson Benge, Marcus Semien, A.J. Ewing, and the aforementioned Soto all stepped up with two hits apiece for a combined 4 RBI to help secure the three-game sweep over the Tigers, 9-4 the final score.
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Mets skipper Carlos Mendoza only needed to call on his bullpen twice today, opening the eighth inning with Tobias Myers and handing the ball to Craig Kimbrel to handle the ninth. Excluding a home run hit by Tigers catcher Dillon Dingler off of Myers, the two relievers didn’t allow a baserunner.
McLean attributed his mid-game bounce back to a conscious decision to “get creative.”
Breaking down his performance today, one aspect which certainly stands out is McLean decided to “mix in the cutters in counts [he] normally wouldn’t throw them a ton.” That cutter (8 percent usage) is the least-used pitch in McLean’s six-pitch arsenal, behind his sinker (36 percent), four-seam fastball (18 percent), sweeper (16 percent), curveball (12 percent), and changeup (9 percent). Today, 16 of McLean’s 93 pitches were cutters, more than double his usual rate. That uptick in cutter usage supplanted the usage of his sweeper and changeup, which were both down during his outing today.
With the team looking to extend their three-game win streak against the cross-town rival Yankees, McLean remarked that the Mets “know how good [their] clubhouse is, and that’s all that matters… [they’re] not worried about anybody else.”
His next start is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, May 19, the second game of a four-game road series against a familiar NL East foe, the Washington Nationals.
