The Mets just made the last week of August look and feel — and sound — like what they very much hope the first week of October will be like, at Citi Field especially. Now, they have been way too unpredictable since a hot start to make three hot nights turn them into some kind of sure thing to roll through the rest of the regular schedule. Still: For the first time in a while, and against the Phillies, this season really did look like last season.
And once again, the headliner was a kid named Nolan McLean. When was the last time a starting pitcher showed up this big, for either New York team, this late? And looking like this kind of immediate star?
“If the Mets do play well the rest of the way,” Ron Darling said at the end of Wednesday night’s broadcast on SNY, “they’re going to look back at August 16.”
That is when McLean came up from Syracuse and made his first big-league start, against the Mariners. Pitched into the sixth. Struck out eight. Mets won. Then he pitched seven innings against the Braves, gave up four hits and two runs, struck out seven. Mets won again. Then came his biggest and best moment yet, against the Phillies on Wednesday night. Eight shutout innings, four hits, six more strikeouts. He’s now 3-0. The Mets have won eight of 11 since he showed up. This is a much smaller sampling than what the Red Sox have had with their own hot kid, Roman Anthony. But Anthony changed a season for the Sox. For now, McLean has done the exact same thing with the Mets. His earned run average currently sits at 0.89. And just like that, out of nowhere, after the Mets rumbled and stumbled and bumbled for months, they’ve got a young starting pitcher who has burst onto the scene the way Jacob deGrom did 11 years ago. Just way deeper into the season.
DeGrom made his first start in May of 2014 against the Yankees, gave up just one earned run in seven innings, struck out six in a game the Mets ended up losing, 1-0. He didn’t help pitch the Mets to a World Series that year. He did that the next. And before long, and before bad things started happening to his right arm, Mets fans were talking about his starts — Jacob deGrom Days — like they were baseball holidays.
This isn’t to say that McLean’s best is going to be deGrom’s best — and deGrom’s best for the Mets was like Dwight Gooden’s, and the great Tom Seaver’s before that — if the kid is blessed with good health. But from the moment Nolan McLean showed up against Seattle, at a time when the Mets desperately needed for something good to happen, it was clear that he had both arm and presence. And that is still a rare combination, here or anywhere.
Now the Mets have to keep it going against the Marlins, who always play as hungry as junkyard dogs. Would it shock anyone if, after the rollercoaster ride that the summer has been at Citi, if they can’t do better than a split against the Marlins, even after what they just did to the Phillies? You know better than that. But maybe the sweep of the Phillies really is going to be the end of their bad baseball, and the beginning of the kind of ending we got from them in the late summer of ’24, and all the way into October.
Both New York teams sure did some big-boy hitting over the past few days. The Yankees did even more with their Home Run Derby at the Stadium. The difference between them and the Mets is that the Mets actually showed up against a good team. The Yankees are going to get the same opportunity after another pillow fight from the White Sox this weekend, when they have to go to Houston, come home for the Tigers and the Blue Jays, before heading up to Fenway Park for three games. Let’s see them bully those guys the way they just bullied the Washington Nationals.
The Yankees still have a chance to win the AL East, of course they do. They have the same shot that the Blue Jays and Red Sox do. But coming off losing three of four to the Red Sox at the Stadium — and getting good and embarrassed in the third of the four last Saturday afternoon — they got thrown a lifeline by the schedule maker, a week of games against the Nationals and White Sox.
Aug. 28, 2025: Rollin’ with Nolan!
New York Daily News Back page for Aug. 28, 2025: In third career start, McLean dominates as Mets sweep first-place Phillies, put to within 4. Nolan McLean, in his third career start, strikes out six and gives up just four hits in eight innings to help Mets win third straight game against division-leading Phillies, who lead Amazin’s by only four games.
But if the Mets were going to still make a run in the NL East, they had to show up against the Phillies. And they did. Did they ever. Can they catch them? It won’t be easy, not with the schedule the Mets have the rest of the way. But at least what seemed impossible in the East not so very long ago does seem possible now. And there is no question that the possibilities were jump-started, big time, when a big time starter like McLean hit town.
“All I can say is ‘wow,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after the way McLean got after the Phillies at Citi on Wednesday night.
Can the kid sustain it into September and beyond? We’re about to find out. But he has won his first three career starts, something Seaver didn’t do, nor Doc, nor deGrom or anybody else. Matt Harvey once threw a charge into Mets fans in 2012, making 10 starts after July. But the Mets were going nowhere that year, with or without him. This year is different, especially after the way they finished last year.
Who knows where this all goes from here, for McLean or for the Mets. But Ron Darling is right. A lot sure did change on Aug. 16. A start from Nolan McLean that may have saved a season.
