ATLANTA — Nolan McLean grew up about six hours from Turner Field, in Willow Springs, North Carolina — an MLB desert whose fandom nonetheless lives in Greg Maddux country.
And on Friday night at Truist Park, as the promising Mets righthander got set to make his second major-league start, there was Maddux himself.
And Tom Glavine.
And John Smoltz . . . and the rest of the 1995 Atlanta team that won the World Series when McLean was minus-6 years old.
The three Hall of Famers threw out the first pitch before the Mets’ 12-7 win while their old teammates lined the infield. And then McLean, pitching in front of some of the greatest in MLB history, somehow didn’t disappoint.
“That was definitely surreal,” he said shortly after allowing two runs and four hits with no walks and seven strikeouts in seven innings. “I was trying to watch [pregame]. Something like that, it’s really cool . . . [They’re] some of the best to ever do it.”
What he did wasn’t too shabby, either: In two starts, the organization’s top pitching prospect has shown himself to have a whole lot of guts and not a small bit of glory.
Tasked with being a stopper in his debut, he didn’t allow a single run. Tasked to do the same Friday, as the Mets reeled from two dispiriting losses against the last-place Nationals, he did it again.
Thanks to his efforts, the Mets took a 1 1⁄2-game lead over the Reds for the third and final National League wild-card spot. Cincinnati lost to Arizona, 6-5, in 11 innings.
With the Mets embroiled in a stretch of 16 straight games, McLean also saved the bullpen, becoming the first Mets starter other than David Peterson to complete six innings since June 7.
Nolan McLean of the @Mets is the only MLB pitcher to have:
2-0 record
sub-1.50 ERA
sub-.150 opp BA
15+ strikeouts
fewer than 5 walks
…over his first 2 career appearances (since ERA became official in both leagues in 1913). pic.twitter.com/oeGECXUPtz
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) August 23, 2025
The fact that he did it in front of legends and family members in the ballpark of his childhood “goes to show you that this kid is special,” Carlos Mendoza said.
The Mets’ offense, meanwhile, stirred to life, highlighted by multi-hit games from Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, Brett Baty, Tyrone Taylor and Cedric Mullins. Each had at least three hits.
Baty recorded four hits with three runs, Soto went 3-for-4 with four RBIs, Hayden Senger drove in three runs and Mullins knocked in two. The Mets had 21 hits, matching a season high.
The one negative was the continuation of a troubling trend for the bullpen: Atlanta scored five runs off Reed Garrett and Ryan Helsley in the last two innings.
“I think [McLean] was huge,” Baty said. “I think baseball is a game of momentum, and when our pitchers are going out there and getting quick outs and doing what he did tonight, it helps our offense too. It’s less time on defense, more time in the dugout.”
The Mets did damage against Joey Wentz in the second when Senger — catching for a banged-up Luis Torrens, who hurt a hand on a foul tip Wednesday — lined a single to left to drive in the game’s opening run. Soto later worked a bases-loaded walk to put the Mets up 2-0.
They made it 4-0 in the third. Pete Alonso led off with a single, Baty had a one-out double and both came home on Mullins’ triple — a ball that took an errant bounce off the wall in right and ricocheted off Ronald Acuna Jr.’s glove before being collected by Michael Harris II in center.
Meanwhile, McLean continued to cruise, not allowing a hit until Nacho Alvarez Jr.’s leadoff double in the third. Jurickson Profar’s RBI single made it 4-1.
Starling Marte’s fourth-inning sacrifice fly to right gave the Mets a 5-1 lead and ended the night for Wentz.
Mark Vientos lined a two-out RBI double to the wall in right-center off Erick Fedde to put the Mets up 6-1. Baty singled and Taylor then got the luckiest of lucky breaks, poking a ball off the end of his bat as he fell in the batter’s box. The liner appeared to skitter off first baseman Matt Olson and bounced off the wall in foul territory for an improbable RBI double and a six-run lead.
Acuna’s 427-foot blast to straightaway center in the fourth, the first MLB home run allowed by McLean, made it 7-2. Soto hit his 32nd homer of the season, a two-run shot off Fedde in the seventh, and added an RBI single in the eighth. Senger tacked on a two-run single that inning, too.
For all that, it remained McLean’s show, even when he wasn’t at his best. Early on, his sweeper and curveball — his two best pitches — weren’t landing, Mendoza said. But “he didn’t shy away, he competed in the strike zone,” Mendoza said. “He moved the ball around and kept trying to throw the breaking balls and that, right there, shows a lot about who he is . . . [It’s] pretty impressive.”
Notes & quotes: Brandon Nimmo’s stiff neck showed improvement Friday; he hasn’t played since Wednesday . . . Jeff McNeil got a precautionary MRI on his sore shoulder that came back clean.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.