STILLWATER – Former Oklahoma State standout, Nolan McLean, is quickly becoming invaluable for the New York Mets as he shined against the Atlanta Braves on Friday night. The Mets rolled to a 12-7 win over the Braves as McLean made his second career start in the Bigs.
McLean was nearly as good as he was in his debut last weekend as he went seven innings last night, giving up two earned runs on four hits with seven strikeouts. While gave up a few runs, his ERA is just a 1.46. Three of those strikeouts came against one of the better hitters in the league in Matt Olson.
A drastic improvement from his first start is he didn’t walk a single batter on Friday. That’s down from four last week.
He also overcame a rather huge obstacle just as the game was starting. On the very first pitch of the game, McLean tripped and hit Jurickson Profar. He bounced back rather well, throwing 94 total pitches, 58 of which were strikes.
That moment was similar to last week when he fielded a comebacker up the middle and made a routine throw to second to start a double play. Younger players full of adrenaline would most likely throw the ball into centerfield and give up a few runs. Younger players full of adrenaline would probably allow a trip and a hit batter to start the game to ruin the rest of the outing. Not Nolan.
Through his first two combined starts, McLean has given up six hits and two runs with 15 strikeouts and four walks in 12.1 innings pitched. He’s now just the second Mets pitcher to have at least 15 strikeouts over the first two MLB starts, joining Matt Harvey.
What’s more crazy is Nolan is the only MLB pitcher to have a 2-0 record, a sub-1.50 ERA, a sub-.150 opponent batting average, 15-plus strikeouts and fewer than five walks over his first two career appearance since ERA became official in both the American and National leagues in 1913. Will it stay that way? No, probably not. But Nolan is off to an incredible start to his Major League career.
