McLean fires 6 scoreless innings, handles bases-loaded jam with ease

CHICAGO -- In a May 19 game against the Nationals, the worst of his career up to that point, Nolan McLean allowed an inside-the-park grand slam to James Wood.

He has been almost unhittable with the bases loaded ever since.

McLean’s latest test came in the third inning of a 2-1 loss to the White Sox at Rate Field on Sunday, when he loaded the bases on a two-out single and consecutive walks. Facing Andrew Benintendi, McLean transformed into a different pitcher. He buzzed the outside corner with a sinker for strike one. He buried a back-foot curveball for strike two. Then he froze Benintendi with another sinker on the inner half to strand the bases loaded.

Since Wood’s grand slam, McLean has faced 12 batters with the bases loaded and retired 11 of them.

“Ideally, I wouldn’t want to get into [those situations],” McLean said. “You’ve just got to execute pitches. Sometimes, you get burned on pitches you execute anyways. But I think over a large sample size, if you continue to execute pitches, it works.”

Benintendi’s at-bat was about the only moment of stress for McLean in his third consecutive quality start. Sporting a Players’ Weekend belt featuring batterymate Luis Torrens’ face, McLean fired six shutout innings with six strikeouts, four walks and just one hit allowed. Dating to June 30, he holds a 1.97 ERA over his last 10 starts.

Ultimately, McLean took a no-decision in a game the Mets lost when Tristan Peters hit a walk-off homer against Kodai Senga in the ninth.

“Those are good hitters, been swinging it really well against us all series, having tough at-bats,” Mets interim manager Andy Green said. “I thought [McLean] was on the attack all day. He mixed. He was really unpredictable -- hard to know what he was going to do. So I felt good about what he did today with six strong innings.”