After Nolan McLean grabbed the win in his major league debut, manager Carlos Mendoza all but confirmed the right-hander will get another start in the Mets' rotation.
Mendoza was a bit noncommittal about the 24-year-old's chances to stay in the rotation after his debut. The skipper didn't seem to have any cold feet when asked about it after Saturday's 3-1 win over the Seattle Mariners.
"I think so," Mendoza said with a laugh when asked if it was safe to say McLean earned another start. "Don't you think?"
"We needed that. We needed that as a team, the organization, given where we are at and how hard it's been for us," the manager continued. "You start thinking about what it's gonna look like here pretty soon, and I feel good about our chances."
McLean delivered 5.1 innings of scoreless baseball, allowing just two hits and four walks while striking out eight on 91 pitches (55 strikes).
Mendoza called the start "pretty impressive" and "unbelievable," adding that all of the best of McLean from mound presence to demeanor to staying on the attack and using all of his pitches was on display in Saturday's start.
"Just the way he handled pretty much everything… unbelievable," he said.
As expected, McLean leaned heavily on his off-speed pitches, throwing his sweeper 36 percent of the time and his curveball 21 percent. Overall, he tallied 11 whiffs on 38 swings and added 17 called strikes. The sweeper led the way with a 36 percent called strike-whiff rate. The sinker, which averaged 94.9 mph for the afternoon, was his second most-used pitch at 26 percent.
"For me, his ability to throw his secondary pitches when he's behind in counts to get back in counts to get swing and misses, to get chases, Mendoza said.
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