Nolan McLean Takes Perfect Game Into Sixth Inning Against Giants

Nolan McLean did not have his most pristine command on Friday.

Yet the Mets’ rookie phenom still took a perfect game into the sixth inning.

It was the latest example of the kinds of special things McLean can do on the mound, despite the way his pitch count piled up in a shaky sixth inning.

Even while McLean was mowing hitters down, it wasn’t in the most traditional sense. He retired the first 15 batters, with seven — nearly half of them — working a full count.

McLean didn’t budge for those first five innings. He fell behind 3-0 three times, and he battled back to draw the count full and get the out each time. Two of the three resulted in swinging strikeouts.

On the night, McLean threw only 51 of his 93 pitches for strikes. That’s 54.8%.

McLean, as usual, showcased a ton of movement on his pitches. His sweeper was particularly sharp. He wrapped one around the inside part of the plate on a 3-2 count that drew awe on social media. He also threw his cutter 20% of the time and had four swing-and-misses on it, the most of any pitch Friday evening.

With that movement, McLean wasn’t finding the strike zone consistently. Yet his stuff was so unhittable that, for a while, it didn’t matter.

Eventually, his lack of precision was bound to catch up with him.

He issued back-to-back walks to start the sixth inning, spoiling his bid for the Mets’ first-ever perfect game. The second of those walks came on his eighth full count of the evening.

Jerar Encarnacion worked a nine-pitch at-bat against McLean but still couldn’t square one up. He eventually flew out to right field.

And that’s where McLean’s no-hit bid ended, at 5 1/3 innings.

On yet another 3-2 count, Willy Adames smacked a cutter on the outside edge to deep right-center field. After forcing McLean to grind through 93 pitches, including 26 in the sixth, the Giants finally got one to land.

McLean was pulled right there. One of his inherited runners came in to score, but it was unearned. He was charged with one earned run while striking out four and walking two.

The natural instinct for McLean might be to look back on this outing with a dissatisfied feeling. He wasn’t at his sharpest in terms of locating his pitches and getting ahead in the count. But he still dominated for most of the outing. The things that probably stick out the most are how deep the arsenal is, and how composed he looks as a big-league pitcher. For what it’s worth — and it’s worth quite a bit, especially for a young pitcher — the constant full counts didn’t faze McLean. He buckled down under pressure and worked through it despite not being at his best.

The fact that he kept the perfect game alive for as long as he did is kind of amazing.

It’s inevitable that McLean will be more locked into the strike zone in his subsequent starts. His BB/9 in his brief MLB career is a good — though not elite — 3.09. His strike rate, per FanGraphs, is 63.5%, almost 10% higher than his showing on Friday.

McLean only just reached 10 starts at the highest level. If bringing a perfect game into the sixth inning is what he does on an off-day, then the prospects of what he can become are quite encouraging.

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