{"id":603506,"date":"2026-03-03T12:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T12:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/603506\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T12:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T12:18:16","slug":"mets-nolan-mclean-to-start-team-usas-group-stage-finale-vs-italy-at-world-baseball-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/603506\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets\u2019 Nolan McLean to start Team USA\u2019s group-stage finale vs. Italy at World Baseball Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New York Mets starting pitcher Nolan McLean will get the ball for Team USA\u2019s group-stage finale against Italy on Tuesday, American manager Mark DeRosa disclosed.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>The 24-year-old right-hander, who burst onto the scene in his eight-start, late-season MLB debut, was not with Team USA in Arizona on Monday, as he was still with the Mets, dealing with an illness.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It is unknown at this time if DeRosa will have to shuffle his rotation because of that.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>The Americans begin the 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/world-baseball-classic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">WBC<\/a> on Friday against Brazil in Houston, with San Francisco Giants starter Logan Webb getting the ball.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>Two-time defending American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal, of the Detroit Tigers, will throw roughly 55 pitches in their second game against Great Britain on Saturday. That will be the only appearance he\u2019ll make at the tournament, though, as he will then return to the AL Central club\u2019s facilities for the remainder of the spring.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Defending NL Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates will toe the rubber on Monday against Mexico.\n<\/p>\n<p>The top two teams in each of the three groups will advance to the knockout stages of the competition.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>While Skubal is only making one start, Skenes and McLean will likely make two. Fellow Mets starter Clay Holmes could potentially factor in later on in the tournament. The veteran right-hander has already stretched out to four ups and 60 pitches in spring training \u2014 well ahead of most of his peers \u2014 in preparation for the WBC.<\/p>\n<p>For more on Nolan McLean and the World Baseball Classic, visit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amny.com\/sports\/baseball\/mets\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">AMNY.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Mets starting pitcher Nolan McLean will get the ball for Team USA\u2019s group-stage finale against Italy&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2396],"tags":[5,101,4,1690,61,2548,4203,2517,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-603506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-mets","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mets","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-mets","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkmets","15":"tag-nolan-mclean","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}