McLean Dies Hard and the Mets Offense Explodes

Mets 12, Atlanta 7 (Truist Park, Atlanta, GA)

Mets record: 68-60

Mets streak: Won 1

Last 10: 5-5

WP - Nolan McLean (2-0)

LP - Joey Wentz (2-3)

S - none

Seat on the Korner:

We select the star of the game and virtually invite him to a Seat on the Korner, just as Ralph Kiner used to do for his studio postgame show on WOR-channel 9 broadcasts in the early decades of the Mets.

On a night when the Mets offense continued their latest tear, with several 2-out RBI hits, and a total of 21 hits, tonight's Seat on the Korner goes to rookie Nolan McLean. June 7th was the last time that any Mets starting pitcher went at least 6 innings other than David Peterson. So, just the fact that he went 7 innings, by itself, was a major accomplishment for this struggling Mets pitching staff . The 6' 2" right hander from North Carolina grew up a Braves fan, and was there tonight when the Braves and their fans paid tribute to their 1995 World Series team. Mets fans assume the worst when the Mets play in Atlanta, and with Chipper, Andruw, and the Crime Dog in the stands, perhaps the Mets mojo needed a former Braves fan to save them. McLean caught a spike on his first pitch of the night but his next 92 pitches looked more like Greg Maddux, including a nifty play on a comebacker that makes you wonder if he'll win a Gold Glove like Maddux did so many times.

The former Oklahoma State Cowboy induced 12 groundball outs - no flyouts - and added 7 K's, to show that his 1st start over the weekend against the Mariners was no fluke. Perhaps most impressive was that he did not walk a single batter, while surrendering only 4 hits. His one mistake was a ball he left up to Ronald Acuna, Jr., who hit a bomb over the left center field fence. But McLean then retired the next 11 Braves. Yipee-Ki-Yay McLean!

Need to Know

• The Mets offense continues to roll. They have scored 108 runs in 19 August games so far, more runs than they scored in 24 July games and 27 May games and they will soon pass the 113 that they scored in June. The Mets are now hitting .277 this month, which is pretty amazing considering the highest batting average on the team is Starling Marte's .281, and every other hitter is at .265 or less.

• After struggling with Runners in Scoring Position in May, June, and July, the Mets have been crushing it with RISP in August, hitting .353 (55-for-156)

• The Mets are in a stretch of 16 games in 16 days, and are 2-2 so far. After this weekend series with the Braves, they return home for a 3-game series against the 1st place Phillies, and a 4-game series against Miami.

• Francisco Lindor is heating up as he usually does late in the season. He extended his hitting streak to 10 games with 3 hits, and is batting .512 (22-43) with 12 runs, five doubles, four homers, eight RBI, five walks, and four steals in that span. Lindor now has 22 stolen bases (only 2 times caught), along with 25 HRs, 27 doubles and 87 runs scored.

• Juan Soto now has 31 HRs and 20 SBs (in 21 attempts). He now has 100 walks, which leads the league, and is the first Met to reach the 100 walk mark this early in the season since John Olerud in 1999. He also has 92 runs scored and 76 RBIs.

• Soto's 869 career walks before his age 27 season are the most in MLB history.

• The Mets 5 through 9 hitters included the likes of struggling Tyrone Taylor, and the Nido-like hitter, Hayden Senger, yet they collectively were 12-for-20 with 6 runs and 6 RBIs, led by Brett Baty's 4 hits.

• Cedric Mullins broke out of his slump since joining the Mets at the trade deadline, with a single, double, and triple, 2 RBIs and a run scored.

• New York is now 27–36 on the road this season .

Turning Point

With the Mets leading the MLB in blown leads since June 13th, no lead feels safe for the Flushing Faithful. So, when the Mets took a 4-0 lead in the top of the 3rd, you can't blame the Negative Nellies from thinking, "When are we blowing this?" The very next inning looked like the answer to that question. Nacho Alvarez, Jr. laced McLean's 2nd pitch of the 3rd into left center for a leadoff double. Nick Allen's productive out moved the runner to 3rd, and Jurickson Profar laced a ball to left, driving the Braves first run of the game to make it 4-1. "Here we go again!" erupted in millions of houses around Queens, Kings and the rest of geographic Long Island - those few with Apple TV, many more listening on WCBS 880, and even those more-than-a-few who swore they were taking a few nights off from their Mets for their own mental health. Up stepped Matt Olson, one of the many Met Killers still in the Braves lineup and not on the DL.

Nolan McLean, who made his major league debut only 5 days ago, struck out Olson on a 3-2 curveball in the dirt, and incredibly, catcher Hayden Senger backhand-picked it out of the dirt and nailed Profar stealing, for a strike-'em-out-throw-'em-out that ended any chance of a rally. Had Olson taken that pitch, the Braves would have 2 on with 1 out, and the heart of their order coming up, any of whom could have tied the game with one swing. But Olson swung, Senger threw, Lindor tagged, and the Mets trotted off the field and into the dugout.

With the Phillies blowing a lead against the Nationals tonight and the Mets closing to 6 games back, perhaps this was also the turning point of the season.

Three Keys

Hayden Senger's improbable 2-out RBI single for a 1-0 lead.

In the top of the 2nd with no score, Baty and Taylor singled with one out. The ice cold new Met Cedric Mullins came in hitting .203 with a 589 OPS, and made the 2nd out on a soft line drive to right. Hayden Senger, just called up becuase of the injury to Francisco Alvarez, stepped up to the plate. One might wonder why Senger's teammates didn't already have their gloves on and ready to take the field, because there was seemingly no chance Senger was going to knock in this run. Indeed, the Apple TV stats stated that his "Hit Probability" was 20%, and the downtrodden Mets fans would have guessed single digits on that stat.

But Senger woke up Mets Nation with a hard groundball through the hole between short and 3rd, and the Mets went up 1-0. That seemed to stun Braves starter Joey Wentz too, as he proceeded to walk the next 2 batters, the latter of which was of the bases loaded variety to Juan Soto to give the Mets a 2-0 lead, and the offense kept rolling the rest of the night.

Juan Soto "quietly" leads the offense.

Juan Soto has been a primary target of Mets fans any time the offense comes up short. Ironically, on a night when the Mets offense had their most productive night of the season, many fans might have missed how significant Soto was to the Mets onslaught.

He walked with the bases loaded in the 2nd to give the Mets a 2-0 lead.

Later on, in the 7th, Soto hit an opposite field home run, a back door breaking ball that he doinked off the left field Fair Pole to put the Mets ahead 9-2 in the 7th. That gave a little bit more room to allow Carlos Mendoza to send McLean out for another inning (which proved to be significant). It was the 113th game where he had a home run and a walk - only 2 players had that many before his 27th birthday: Mickey Mantle (115) and Jimmy Foxx (114).

But perhaps Soto's most significant at bat was in the 5th inning, when he fouled off four 3-2 pitches before driving a base hit to right on the 9th pitch of the at-bat. That followed Lindor's leadoff base hit, and led to a 3-run inning that blew open the game 7-1.

Soto added a 2nd walk and an RBI single, for a night where he reached base 5 times, drove in 4, including 3 for 3 with Runners in Scoring Position, and saw 31 pitches.

Helsley and Garrett still look lost

With a monster lead, Carlos Mendoza saw this as an opportunity to get struggling Reid Garret and completely-lost Ryan Helsley some low pressure work. And it could not have gone worse. Garrett ran deep counts on almost every batter, surrendering 3 hits and 2 runs. Worse, he allowed a run-scoring hit on a fielding gem by Pete Alonso when Garrett failed to cover first base. He did finish the inning strong by striking out Michael Harris, III. It was the kind of outing one sees from a veteran's pitcher during Spring Training, warranting explanations of "he was just working on his stuff." Except it's late August.

No one was thinking about Garrett once Ryan Helsley took the mound. Appearing, for once, in his more comfortable 9th inning, Helsley looked like a batting practice pitcher. Despite an 8-run lead, Helsley walked the leadoff batter, then proceeded to give up 2 doubles and single around 2 hard outs, and in a game that was a laugher, Mets Closer Edwin Diaz began warming up. With Matt Olson coming up, blood pressures began to rise at the K Korner Pub. Fortunately, Helsley made an excellent sliding play on a ground ball to his right to get the last out of the game.