It was a day of remembrance, but a night Nolan McLean might want to forget.
McLean’s curveball spins at a higher rate than any other in baseball, but Friday night at Yankee Stadium, Cody Bellinger spun one over the short porch in right field into the stands. The three-run homer sank the Mets in a 6-4 loss to the Yankees.
It was the first time in more than a month McLean failed to go more than five innings, and only the second time in his last 14 outings. McLean was charged with five earned runs on a career-worst 10 hits over five innings in his ninth loss of the season (11-9). He struck out five and walked one.
“I think Nolan had the opportunity to, probably, attack inside more than he did today,” said interim manager Andy Green. “You could feel from the beginning they were living out over [the plate], so today wasn’t necessarily his best day. There was opportunity to, probably, get in more aggressively than he did, though.”
An NL Rookie of the Year candidate, McLean has looked like a seasoned veteran at times this season, but even the most dominant rookie starting pitchers have outings like the one McLean had against the Yankees. Rookies slump, sputter and get knocked down, then figure out how to get up again. In this case, McLean got into bad counts and wasn’t aggressive enough to get himself out of them.
No one knows this better than Bellinger, the 2017 NL Rookie of the Year. While his hitless stretches were few and far between with the Dodgers in 2017, there were bad strikeouts and bad games. Individually, they did little to dent his candidacy. The overall body of work was too impressive.
The same goes for McLean, who has carried a sub-3.00 ERA for most of the season and has quietly put up some of the best starting pitching numbers in the National League since June.
“This outing will irk him because he’s a competitor,” Green said. “He expects to win every game he steps on the mound. His season has been solid. Still think there’s another level for him. I think that’s the healthiest way to look at your best players, that there’s more in them than has come out of them.”
A sellout crowd packed the Bronx to commemorate 25 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A pregame ceremony made for a heavy atmosphere, but it was one McLean relished.
“Awesome fans, awesome city,” McLean said. “I think that’s ultimately what was most important about tonight. People who died trying to help others and the people who were in those buildings. It’s awesome to see that many people show up, and that’s important.”
The Yankees fed off the crowd, hitting McLean right away. They loaded the bases before McLean got Luis Garcia Jr. to hit a line drive right to second baseman Marcus Semien for the first out. Spencer Jones poked a single through the right side to score leadoff hitter Ben Rice, but McLean recovered nicely, getting George Lombard Jr. to ground into a double play.
The Mets came back to tie the game at 1-1 in the top of the second, and McLean got the first two outs in the bottom. But then Anthony Volpe singled to bring up the top of the order, and Rice kept the inning alive with one himself. Then came Bellinger. McLean fell behind before working the count full. On the sixth pitch, Bellinger got ahold of a changeup low in the zone, lifting it into right field.
“I was happy where I put that pitch,” McLean said. “I didn’t want to leave the zone too much and not get the swing, then put him on base. He was able to kind of dig it out and kind of ride through his front side a little bit and put it in the seats. It’s unfortunate, but I mean the guy’s good at baseball too, so it’s part of it sometimes.”
Bellinger has long been able to dig out those low pitches, but few hitters have touched McLean’s curveball this season the way Bellinger did. It didn’t surprise Green, who was Bellinger’s bench coach in Chicago with the Cubs. What Green wanted to see was how McLean would adjust.
As the game went on, the Mets started pitching Bellinger inside more. McLean settled in, going inside on left-handed hitters’ hands, which then forced them to chase balls outside of the zone. The adjustment was made after the most damage had been done.
The path to winning ROY isn’t as clear for McLean as it was for Bellinger. But as the only pitcher among the group, McLean stands out. He’s the type of pitcher that appeals to both the old-school, anti-analytics crowd and the voters who live and die by advanced metrics. He should get plenty of votes.
One start won’t mean much when looking at the totality of his season, even if his ERA is above 3.00 for the time being (3.24). He has a few more starts to push himself and bolster his candidacy.