In terms of dazzling, Nolan McLean has done so more in other starts this season. He’s generated more strikeouts. He’s produced more swings and misses — the flashy numbers that can fill a boxscore.
But in terms of dominance, in terms of looking like the Mets ace of the future — a label he has thrived with — and powering them to a win, this was vintage McLean, pitching the Mets to a 6-2 win over the Astros on Saturday at Citi Field.
On an afternoon when the Mets welcomed Juan Soto back from a 31-game absence and watched him drive in the go-ahead run, McLean relied on his fastball to scatter just two hits across seven innings and allowed only an unearned run. He didn’t record his first strikeout until the fifth inning, but he only walked one batter and has now allowed just two earned runs across four starts since his Aug. 6 dud.
“Any time you can go deeper into games and not have to use as many pitches, it’s good,” McLean said. “Obviously, like, striking guys out is fun, but so is going seven innings.”
McLean only forced Houston hitters to whiff on six of his 40 swings, but McLean avoided the major swings — and the home runs — that have caused other starts to unravel. With Houston’s aggressiveness, he focused on using mostly fastballs, throwing either his sinker, cutter or four-seam fastball for 76 of his 93 pitches. At one point, McLean retired 20 of 24 batters.
“I think he just recognized they were crazy aggressive,” interim manager Andy Green said.
“He had three fastball shapes, and he could miss barrels and get soft contact and pitch deep into the game — so it became less of ‘I need to punch people out’ and more of ‘how do I get seven innings in that are good for the club today?’
“So he just took the easy quick outs that he could get on the ground and got a lot of pop-ups too at the same time, so he’s special. He can get you out a whole bunch of different ways, and he didn’t even really rely on the spin today. It was a great outing.”
Kodai Senga pitched on consecutive days out of the bullpen for the second time, and in this instance, he survived without allowing a run. Jose Altuve led off with a double and Christian Walker nearly crushed a home run over the center field fence, but A.J. Ewing made an impressive catch — as his back collided with the wall while he maintained possession.
“I went pessimistic quick,” Green said. “I thought it was gone, so it was great to be saved by our center fielder.”
Jonah Tong kept making his case to join the Mets rotation in September — perhaps in place of journeyman Robert Stock — by throwing a complete-game, seven-inning shutout for Triple-A Syracuse on Saturday against Lehigh Valley. He came within one out of an abbreviated no-hitter, allowing a single with two outs in the seventh. Tong scattered two walks, while striking out eight batters, and lowered his ERA to 4.54.
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Mark Vientos, who entered Saturday just 2-for-14 through the first five games of his rehab assignment, went 3-for-4 for Syracuse, drove in a run and scored twice.”
