ANAHEIM -- Nolan McLean has been a lot of things throughout his first 15 career starts. “Hittable” has generally not been one of them.
Yet that’s what McLean was on Saturday night at Angel Stadium, when he allowed a season-high six hits and three runs to the Angels over the first four innings of a 4-3, 10-inning loss. The outing raised McLean's ERA to 2.97.
After striking out the first two batters he faced to open his evening, McLean allowed three consecutive hits in the first inning to score a somewhat debatable run.
Austin Slater cut down Jorge Soler at third base on Jo Adell's single to end the inning, and replays showed the tag occurred before Nolan Schanuel stepped on home plate. But the Mets did not challenge, allowing the run to stand.
"He missed it,” manager Carlos Mendoza said of Harrison Friedland, the Mets’ replay coordinator. “We called, obviously, and he missed it. Harrison is one of the best at his job, and it obviously ends up being a big play when you lose by one run.”
From there, McLean retired seven straight before running into more trouble in the fourth. A one-out walk, a single and a wild pitch put two men in scoring position, before Vaughn Grissom cashed them in with a two-run single.
From McLean’s perspective, the trouble mostly revolved around his inability to get ahead in counts. Untrusting of anything but his sinker on this night, McLean said he tried to be too fine early in counts, allowing Angels hitters to get the advantage and sit on fastballs.
“I just wasn’t executing,” McLean said. “Like I’ve stated a lot this year, it’s really hard to pitch behind in counts.”
A two-run Mets rally in the seventh inning took McLean off the hook for the loss, but New York wound up falling on an Oswald Peraza walk-off single in the 10th.
“I’ve got to pitch better,” McLean said.