SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 For five innings, Nolan McLean wasn\u2019t just brilliant, he was perfection, or at least something close to it.<\/p>\n
In only his 10th big league start, McLean threw five perfect innings in the Mets\u2019 10-3 win over the San Francisco Giants on Friday night at Oracle Park. McLean dominated the San Francisco lineup, carving them up on a night where he didn\u2019t even have a feel for his best pitches.<\/p>\n
It was a tightrope act of sorts, with McLean relying on his cutter to get him out of bad counts. Somehow, he pitched into the sixth inning without even realizing he was flirting with a perfect game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t really feel that way,\u201d he said. \u201cIt felt like kind of a grind, or grindier, I guess, than what the scoreboard showed.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were three-ball counts and full counts, which forced the 24-year-old to throw more pitches than he would have liked. By the end of the fifth, he had thrown 67 of them. Still, you wouldn\u2019t have known by the rapid pace he worked and by the swings the Giants were taking.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty impressive when he doesn\u2019t have the feel for the secondary pitches,\u201d said manager Carlos Mendoza. \u201cThe cutter was kind of the way he did it today. So it goes to show you that there\u2019s so many weapons there that he can get through lineups with basically a pitch or two.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even McLean seemed surprised at what he accomplished with a pitch he only threw five times to Major League hitters last year. The Giants managed two runs (one earned) on one hit and two walks, while striking out four times over 5 1\/3 innings. Harrison Bader broke up the perfect game by drawing a leadoff walk in the sixth, and with two on and one out, Willy Adames broke up the no-hitter with a ground-rule double to bring home Bader.<\/p>\n
The Mets then went to the bullpen for left-hander Brooks Raley. McLean walked off the field to an ovation from the visiting fans and from many of the home fans as well. It was unlike any outing he\u2019s ever had before, and even if it wasn\u2019t his best, the Mets came away from it with the understanding that they have a pitcher who can find ways to get outs even when it\u2019s more difficult than usual.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was basically just one pitch that he had today, which was the cutter, and he still dominated,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cThe kid is special, man. He\u2019s still going to show you the breaking ball, the secondaries, and the sinker. He kept using them, but again, when he needed to get back into counts, when he needed to execute a pitch, it was the cutter.\u201d<\/p>\n
An offense that had been starved for runs since an Opening Day outburst eight days prior finally broke out, giving McLean some run support early in the game. The Mets scored five against right-hander Tyler Mahle, jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the first, and going up 5-0 in the top of the fourth. Marcus Semien hit a two-run shot off his Mahle (0-2), his former Texas Rangers teammate, and two batters later, Francisco Alvarez hit his first of two in the game. He nearly had a third one over the fence in the eighth.<\/p>\n
Semien, who was born in San Francisco, grew up in the Bay Area and played college ball across the water in Berkeley, went 3-for-5 with three RBI and a run. Bo Bichette went 3-for-5 with a double, an RBI and two runs scored. Mark Vientos had two hits, an RBI and walked twice. Francisco Lindor went 2-for-4 with a walk, and Luis Robert Jr. walked twice to bring his season total to eight already.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe beginning of the season is always going to be tough no matter what,\u201d Semien said. \u201cI think pitchers are always going to be ahead of hitters, and we\u2019re working extremely hard in the cage to make sure we feel good in the box. And today was definitely one of those days.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mets did it all without Juan Soto, who left the game after the top of the first after his calf tightened up on him while running from first to third in the first inning. The star outfielder will undergo imaging Saturday. A big loss early in the game, yet the Mets didn\u2019t let it set any sort of negative tone. It was a stellar performance up and down the lineup.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never want to lose a guy like that. I don\u2019t know how bad it is yet, but I know he works extremely hard to get himself back as soon as possible. The good thing is we have a deep group. We have guys that were the guys on the bench should be starting on this team, and somebody else is going to get a chance and just try and hold it down.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 For five innings, Nolan McLean wasn\u2019t just brilliant, he was perfection, or at least something…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,162,134,101,4,2517,378,66,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342],"class_list":{"0":"post-662681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-giants","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-giants","10":"tag-juan-soto","11":"tag-mets","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-nolan-mclean","14":"tag-san-francisco","15":"tag-san-francisco-giants","16":"tag-sanfrancisco","17":"tag-sanfranciscogiants","18":"tag-sf","19":"tag-sf-giants","20":"tag-sfgiants"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662681","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=662681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}