McLean surrenders 1st HR off curve in Subway Series loss

NEW YORK -- Nearly a year and a month into his Major League career, Nolan McLean did something he never had before.

One of the sport’s finest curveball practitioners gave up a homer off his curveball.

The offending pitch left McLean’s hand in the second inning of a 6-4 loss to the Yankees on Friday. It landed a Statcast-projected 377 feet away courtesy of Cody Bellinger, who deposited it into Yankee Stadium’s short porch in right for a tiebreaking three-run homer.

“It’s unfortunate,” McLean said. “But that guy’s good at baseball, too.”

For 13 months, McLean’s curveball presented as one of the best pitches in baseball. According to the Stuff+ model, which grades individual pitches based on velocity, movement, spin and other factors, McLean entered Friday’s play sporting the fourth-best curveball among qualified big leaguers, behind only Jacob Misiorowski, Braxton Ashcraft and Paul Skenes. His average spin rate on that pitch led the Majors. But the Yankees proved to be the rare team ready for it, going 3-for-3 off McLean curveballs that ended at-bats.

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Mostly, Bellinger was ready for it. In a harbinger of things to come, Bellinger singled off a wicked curve near the bottom of the strike zone in the first inning, grounding a ball through the right side to advance an early Yankees rally. An inning later, with two men on base in a 3-2 count, McLean threw a similar pitch to Bellinger, who golfed it over the right-field fence.

“I was happy where I put that pitch,” McLean said. “I didn’t want to leave the zone too much and not get the swing and put him on base. He was able to dig it out … and put it in the seats.”

“I tried to keep it simple,” added Bellinger. “I got down two strikes there and tried to put a good swing on it.”

Though McLean was mostly satisfied with the two-strike pitch to Bellinger, interim manager Andy Green noted that the right-hander’s mistake may have come earlier in the at-bat -- and in other plate appearances throughout the game -- when McLean lived on the outer edge of the strike zone with his sinker and slider. That allowed Yankees hitters to feel more comfortable leaning out over the plate, where they could be aggressive on his breaking balls.

“I think Nolan had the opportunity to probably attack in more than he did today,” Green said. “You could tell from the beginning they were living out over [the plate]. So that wasn’t necessarily his best day.”

All told, McLean allowed a career-high 10 hits over five innings, while also giving up five runs. The performance dampened his long-shot bid to become the National League Rookie of the Year, raising his ERA to 3.24. Although McLean has accomplished the most of any NL rookie pitcher, Reds first baseman Sal Stewart is the favorite for that award given his 31-homer, 107-RBI season. Stewart leads the Majors in RBIs.

“This outing will irk him, because he’s a competitor and he expects to win every game he steps on the mound,” Green said. “His season’s been solid. I still think there’s another level for him. I think that’s the healthiest way to look at your best players, that there’s more in them than has come out of them, even if what’s coming out of him has been really good. I still hold that he can be one of the best in the game.”