The spin rates were eye-opening. The results spoke for themselves. Yet everyone around the Mets seemed most impressed by the poise that Nolan McLean demonstrated in his outstanding major league debut on Saturday at Citi Field.
“It’s everything we’ve been hearing about him,” Carlos Mendoza said after the Mets’ 3-1 win over the Seattle Mariners. “The mound presence, the demeanor, the attack. You feel it. There’s something special there.”
It’s what I’ve been hearing as well from Mets people since they drafted him out of Oklahoma State in 2023, where he played infield and hit at the top of the lineup in addition to pitching.
“He has the weapons to succeed in the big leagues,” one Mets person told me earlier this week, “but a lot of guys have that. The poise and the compete factor will separate him. The It Factor, whatever you want to call it. Spend time around him and you feel it.”
It’s one of the reasons the Mets chose McLean over Brandon Sproat when they finally decided to bounce Frankie Montas from the rotation. Sproat had been the hotter pitcher in recent weeks, but he had also struggled badly last year and for a couple of months this year after being promoted to Triple A, where the transition was seamless this year for McLean.
For that matter, it’s also the reason I heard from scouts for several weeks who were surprised the Mets were waiting so long to call up McLean, given the injuries to their rotation and some of the lesser-talented major leaguers they were running out there.
As one scout put it, "If they were worried about a bad start up there hurting his confidence or setting him back, he’d be the last guy I’d be worried about. The Mets people I know say he thrives on competition like very few guys that come along.”
In recent weeks, David Stearns explained his resistance to calling up either McLean or Sproat as a matter of wanting to have the spot in the rotation to keep them there, rather than shuttling them back and forth.
They did that with Blade Tidwell, though nobody seemed to think he had the ceiling of either Sproat or McLean. And Tidwell didn’t pitch particularly well, leading the Mets to trade him in the deadline deal for Tyler Rogers.
So now, after McLean’s debut, you have to wonder if indeed Stearns should have made the call to McLean earlier. Maybe he could have helped make the Mets’ starting rotation more competitive in recent weeks and kept the ballclub from going into a free-fall.
To be fair, however, it’s possible that Mclean needed this much time in the minors to sharpen his game so he could major league hitters out as well, especially left-handed hitters. After his debut Saturday, the right-hander said he’s made significant improvements against lefties in the last several weeks, learning to pitch inside to them with both his fastball and his breaking stuff.
“I’ve really worked at that,” McLean said.
So who knows for sure? The good news for the Mets is, as bad as they’ve played, losing 12 of 14 games going into Saturday, it’s not too late for McLean to have an impact. They’re still in the third wild card spot, and suddenly the five-game deficit to the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East didn’t seem quite as imposing with the news that Phillies’ ace Zack Wheeler went on the IL with a blood clot in his pitching arm.
It doesn’t mean McLean is guaranteed to pitch with dominance in the weeks ahead, but his debut certainly gave Mets fans hope and brought a much-needed fresh vibe to a ballclub that had forgotten how to win.
“We definitely felt the energy from the minute he took the mound,” Mendoza said. “It’s maybe something we were missing, with how hard a stretch this has been.”
McLean showed no nerves, striking out leadoff hitter Randy Arozarena looking at an 86-mph sweeper, his most dominant pitch in the minors. Afterward, McLean seemed surprised when a reporter asked if that first strikeout helped settle the nerves.
Nerves? What nerves?
“I felt pretty good, actually,” he said. “Once the batter steps in the box, it’s just competition.”
He said it matter-of-factly, in a way that sounded genuine. Again, Mets people say there’s no fake tough guy in him.
“That’s him,” one person said. “He’s still got some football in him.’’
Yes, McLean was a star football player in high school, good enough that he was recruited to play both football and baseball at Oklahoma State, and did so for a year before deciding to concentrate on baseball. And then he was drafted by the Mets as both a hitter and a pitcher, before giving up hitting at some point last year.
In any case, for 5.1 innings on Saturday, McLean showcased all of his weapons, mixing his pitches with a variety of speed and spin, from his 78-mph curveball to his 97-mph four-seamer. His spin rates on sweeper and curve ball, in particular, were among the highest in the majors this season, but he also wasn’t afraid to challenge hitters with his fastball when he had to.
For the day, he racked up eight strikeouts before Mendoza took him out with his pitch count at 91 pitches. No surprise, the move was met with loud booing for the manager, as much because of the bullpen meltdowns or recent days as the desire to see more of McLean.
“Oh, I heard them loud and clear,” Mendoza said with a laugh afterward. “If I was sitting in the stands, I would have been booing myself. But I have responsibility here to him and the ballclub.”
Fortunately for Mendoza, Gregory Soto, the one trade-deadline acquisition who has been superb, got through the sixth and seventh, and from there the manager went right to Edwin Diaz for a six-out save, which told you all you needed to know about the state of the bullpen and how much the Mets needed this win.
“It’s getting to a point where it’s go time,” was the way Mendoza explained it.
If they’re going to get back to playing like a playoff team, it already feels as if McLean will be a big part of it. His debut was that notable.
Even beyond the strikeouts and the dominance, it was one play that stood out most, when he escaped a bases-loaded situation into an inning-ending double play in the third, making a spectacular behind-the-back grab of the ball and then a textbook turn and fire to Brett Baty for a 1-4-3 DP.
“That said a lot about who he is,” one scout told me Saturday night. “First, he didn’t flinch when he got in trouble. He made a good pitch to get in on Julio (Rodriguez), then had the awareness not only to make the grab but to spin and throw a strike to second. Most guys making their first start would have gone home and probably hurried the throw.
“He reacted more like a seasoned infielder than a young pitcher. It doesn’t mean he’s going to set the world on fire right away. But I wouldn’t bet against it.”
