ATLANTA — Nolan McLean wasn’t even alive when the Atlanta Braves gained the 1995 World Collection, however any pitcher who grew up within the South, just like the Mets‘ right-hander did, has undoubtedly heard of the “Big Three,” Tom Glavine, John Smoltz and Greg Maddux.
Friday night time at Truist Park, with the trio in attendance, McLean did his greatest to channel their greatness within the second big-league begin of his profession. An environment friendly McLean held the Braves to solely two earned runs over seven innings within the Mets’ 12-7 win. It marked the primary time since June 7 the Mets have had a beginning pitcher aside from David Peterson throw six or extra innings, snapping a streak of 62 video games.
“Now it’s in the past,” stated supervisor Carlos Mendoza. “Hopefully now guys can feed off each other and it kind of [becomes] contagious because we’re going to need those guys.”
Although he tries to deal with each begin the identical, the 24-year-old couldn’t deny that this one was particular. His mother and father had been in attendance. He had pals watching and a coach from Oklahoma State, the place he performed in faculty. It was the ballpark he would go to when he got here to Atlanta to play in journey ball tournaments.
Plus, the Massive Three had been watching from the stands.
“That’s definitely surreal,” McLean stated. “It’s special just to be able to go out there and compete at the highest level.”
It was an evening celebrating the previous because the Braves honored 30-year anniversary of the 1995 championship group. The entire greats had been available for a pregame ceremony, together with Chipper Jones, a childhood hero of McLean rising up in North Carolina. McLean watched the pregame ceremony from the dugout, wanting to be part of Main League festivities.
However as soon as he took the mound, it was all in regards to the future.
The Braves (58-70, fourth-place NL East) have lengthy been out of championship competition, and with the Mets (68-60, second-place NL East) desperately clinging to their very own playoff hopes, they wanted an enormous efficiency. They bought what they wanted.
“We had some really good at-bats, 1-9, especially against [left-hander Joey Wentz],” Mendoza stated. “We forced him up in the zone at the beginning. We chased a little bit, but then just continued to add on.”
The Mets beat up on Wentz (4-4), scoring six earned runs in solely 3 1/3 innings, and persevering with the onslaught towards right-hander Erick Fedde, with six off of the right-hander. A 20-hit night time for the Mets, each hitter within the beginning lineup bought a success, together with backup catcher Hayden Senger, who went 2-for-5 with a career-high three RBI.
Third on the depth chart, Senger was known as up in the beginning of the Mets’ six-game street journey Tuesday when Francisco Alvarez was positioned on the injured listing.
Juan Soto hit his thirty second residence run of the season and was considered one of 5 hitters to have no less than three hits. Brett Baty had a career-high 4, going 4-for-5 with a double and three runs scored.
“It was awesome,” Baty stated. “I felt like 1-9 we were just going out there and smacking the ball around. These nights are really fun.”
“We know that we’re a pretty good offensive team,” Mendoza added. “When we’ve got those guys clicking like that, we’re going to score a lot of runs. We were able to make some adjustments today.”
However the actual star was McLean (2-0). The offense noticed him a 4-0 lead early, scoring twice within the second inning and two extra instances within the third. McLean used a 97 MPH sinker and a sweeper with some main spin to get ground-ball outs.
He struck out infamous Met-killer Matt Olson 3 times, throwing the e-book on the slugger. Within the first inning, he bought forward on Olson straight away, 0-2, and went to curveball, one other high-spin pitch. Olson took one out of the zone for ball 1, however fouled off one other and swung by way of a 3rd for strike 3.
Attempting to increase the inning after Jurickson Profar drove within the Braves’ first run, in his second at-bat, Olson labored the depend full earlier than hanging out on one other curveball. McLean used nearly all the pieces to get Olson out in his third at-bat, however struck him out on a cutter, a pitch he hadn’t used towards him within the first two at-bats.
“I mixed a lot of pitches against him,” McLean stated. “Was able to execute some cutters in the last at-bat against him, which I didn’t show him the entire game. I didn’t have much of the curveball tonight, but I did have it against him, so it was lucky to be able to get it below his bat a few times.”
Ronald Acuña Jr. led off the fourth with a house run, however by then the Mets had been already up six runs, 7-1. That was closest the Braves would come. McLean’s remaining line: Two earned runs on 4 hits, no walks and 7 strikeouts. Not unhealthy for a rookie in a hostile surroundings.
“I think our offense just did such a good job to give me so much breathing room that I was able to just pound the strike zone and make them put it in play,” McLean stated.
Perhaps the important thing to the Mets’ success in Atlanta is utilizing a lifelong Braves fan towards them.
Initially Printed: August 22, 2025 at 9:59 PM EDT
