McLean Masterful in Defeat to Dodgers

He had one future Hall of Famer (Shohei Ohtani) shaking his head and another (Freddie Freeman) swinging at pitches out of the strike zone.

Nolan McLean‘s last pitch was a 90 mph change-up that struck out Andy Pages, who doesn’t have the resume of Ohtani or Freeman but is leading the league in hitting at .397.

“We haven’t seen McLean up close, I don’t recall, but man he’s special,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters.

McLean threw seven innings of one-run, two-hit ball and struck out eight Tuesday in the Mets’ 2-1 loss to the Dodgers in front of 48,138 at Dodger Stadium. His counterpart, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, threw 7 2/3 innings of one-run ball and fanned seven. The game was played in 2 hours, 3 minutes.

“Man, it was old school, you know, pitcher’s duel,” Roberts said. “You can see both pitchers feeling like they didn’t have any margin. And after that first inning and we were fortunate to squeak one out … but after that there was just nothing happening. Just two great pitchers.”

Carlos Mendoza had effusive praise for both starters as well. Yamamoto retired 20 in a row after Francisco Lindor led off the game with a homer and McLean set down 13 straight at one point.

“I think some of their hitters, you know, Freddie Freeman, that first at-bat, and some of the swings that he was taking,” Mendoza said. “He pretty much dominated one of the best lineups in the league. That goes to show you how good of a pitcher Nolan is when he’s at his best and today was one of those nights.

“Man, they were both awesome. Yamamoto was pretty nasty, but Nolan was pretty nasty too. They went head to head. It was inning after inning, batter after batter, pitch after pitch. They made it tough on hitters. Sucks losing that one, especially when you get that type of outing, but yeah they were both on their game today.”

McLean, who has allowed two earned runs or fewer in 11 of his 12 career starts, was asked if it was extra special to face the Dodgers in their ballpark.

“Maybe a little bit,” the 24-year-old said. “Like I’ve said before, I try to treat every start the same no matter who’s standing in the box or where I’m at. I just want to win every time I go out there. But like growing up a baseball fan and getting to watch some of these guys on TV as I’m growing up, it’s really cool to get to go compete against them.”

Did Mendoza think about giving McLean the eighth inning?

“Not after 95 pitches, he did his job there,” he said. “He went 100 last time and that was kind of like what we were looking at. At that point we just decided to go with a clean inning instead of just going one hitter there with him finishing at 95.”

Mendoza went to Brooks Raley to start the eighth, prompting Roberts to pinch-hit for Hyeseong Kim with Miguel Rojas. Raley walked Rojas on five pitches and after a sacrifice bunt and an intentional walk to Ohtani, Kyle Tucker singled home what proved to be the winning run.

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