Nolan McLean was outstanding again on Tuesday night.
After being handed an early 3-0 lead on a Francisco Lindor homer, the young right-hander was doing everything he could to make sure he brought the Mets’ 11-game losing streak to an end.
McLean absolutely cruised his way through the Twins’ lineup in the early-going, retiring the first 15 batters he faced and picking up eight strikeouts along the way over the first five innings.
Matt Wallner immediately brought both the perfect game and no-hit bids to an end, though, leading off the top of the sixth with a clean single.
The righty retired the next two hitters easily, but then fell behind Byron Buxton 3-1 before he lifted an up-and-away cutter for a towering two-run homer down the left-field line.
McLean gave up another hit, but was able to escape without any further damage.
Even with the youngster starting to show some signs of fatigue, Carlos Mendoza elected to stick with him to start the seventh, and Minnesota was quickly able to breakthrough again.
Back-to-back knocks from Kody Clemons and Luke Keaschall completely flipped the script, evening things up at three apiece and chasing McLean from the game.
“He’s our guy,” the skipper said afterwards. “With the way he was throwing on a day when we had a couple of our guys down we knew we were going to push him, so we felt good with where he was at and he gave us a chance.
"I’d like to go a bit longer," McLean admitted. "But Bux made a good swing and things snowballed from there."
The 24-year-old finished giving up just three runs on five hits while matching his career-high with 10 strikeouts.
McLean was outstanding the first two times through the order once again, but this isn’t the first time that he’s been hit a bit harder that elusive third time around.
As pointed out by Anthony Dicomo of MLB.com, opponents have just a .075 average against him over the first five innings, compared to a .360 mark in the sixth and beyond.
It’s something McLean knows he has to work on moving forward.
“These guys are getting paid to play baseball too,” he said. “At the end of the day I just have to execute a little bit better, maybe do a little bit more homework on how guys are adjusting, but I just have to execute better at the end of the day.”