Four starts, four wins, and a whole lot of awesomeness. Nolan McLean hasn’t come close to hitting the guard rails. In each outing, there has been something impressive. Whether it was bouncing back from first inning struggles his last time out against the Detroit Tigers or shutting down the Philadelphia Phillies for 8 innings, McLean has been a joy to watch.
An innings eating machine who has been efficient with his pitch count, the one question we have left for him to answer gets a resolution vs. the Phillies tonight.
The balanced MLB schedule hasn’t provided the Mets with many repeat opponents. The Seattle Mariners, Atlanta Braves, Phillies, and Tigers have been the ones to experience McLean thus far. The Phillies get their second chance on Monday night.
There’s a book on Nolan McLean now and the Phillies will have a chance to read it again
Everyone in the Phillies lineup saw McLean three times at the end of August. Mustering up 4 hits, drawing 0 walks, and striking out 6 times, no one seemed to have an answer for their first glimpse at the hottest rookie on the Mets roster. The fabled worsening of a pitcher the more you get to know them didn’t ring true that Wednesday night when McLean cruised through 27 batters.
What about this time through? With only one more game of tape to review in a darkened room the size of a shoe closet, there is little to tell us McLean is in for a rude awakening. Batters are 4 for 22 against him their third through in a game with all of those hits being singles. None of his 4 runs allowed have come against batters facing him for a third time either. He has been just as crisp, if not more, shortly before exiting a game.
The last time these two teams played, Keith Hernandez had one word to describe the Phillies: overrated. The team backed it up on the field by winning all three games against their NL East foe.
https://twitter.com/SNY_Mets/status/1960458892036407603
We can begin to draw fresh conclusions about McLean as a pitcher the more innings he throws and repeat opponents he faces. The Phillies get the first crack at a second chance against him. If round one was any indication of what’s to come, McLean shouldn’t have any issues and plenty of room for error.
