Nolan McLean keeps getting better and better — but not even he can escape the Mets.
In just his 12th start as a big leaguer (!!!), McLean was nicked for a first-inning run but looked sparkling after that, making the best team in baseball look downright silly for the rest of a long night at Dodger Stadium. Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy, Teoscar Hernandez … they and their fellow Met tormenters all got undressed by McLean over seven superb innings. McLean — and again, let’s note he’s only made 12 starts as a big leaguer — is channeling peak Jacob deGrom or once-upon-a-time Dwight Gooden, with the first hit against him feeling like a surprise bordering on a betrayal.
Alas, the Mets looked downright silly with bats in their hands for most of the night too. Francisco Lindor, who’d been on the back of a milk carton as a hitter with nary a 2026 RBI to his name, started the night promisingly with a Daniel Murphyesque home run off Yoshinobu Yamamoto. But that was all the Mets would do to support McLean for the evening. A continuation of the team’s baffling, nauseating offensive blackout? Yes. Testament to Yamamoto being every bit as good as McLean? Also yes.
Maybe the Mets should take a page from Yamamoto’s mound mate Ohtani and let McLean be a two-way player again. He swung a bat in anger as a professional not so long ago, after all, and he can’t fare any worse as a hitter than the pacifist band sent out on his behalf.
I’m not entirely kidding. Hell, I’m not kidding at all. Remember the night Noah Syndergaard beat the Dodgers and hit two home runs? I miss stuff like that. (Good recap title too!)
With McLean not allowed to ride to his own rescue, the game wound up as a bullpen affair, and I waited grimly for the fatal mistake to come, which it did in the form of a little Kyle Tucker ducksnort against Brooks Raley in the eighth. The Mets were at least spared a reunion with old friend Edwin Diaz, whose velocity hasn’t been to the Dodgers’ liking; it didn’t matter, as Alex Vesia needed only one extra pitch to strike out the side in the ninth and seal a Dodger victory.
A Dodger victory, a seventh straight Met loss. If the Mets quietly disbanded rather than return to New York, would anyone notice? Would we not on some level be relieved?
In order to disband, don’t you need to be banded in the first place?
McLean a giant among pygmies.
Los Mets no son buenos
A lineup of Theodore in right, Hahn in center, Schneck in left, Aspromonte at 3rd, Harrelson at short, Martinez at second, Beauchamp at first, with Grote behind the dish would have more fire power than this group. Can’t anybody here play this game? Grass shoots are not going to cut it around here.
Frankly, a lineup including Alvin, Theodore and Simon would have more firepower than the current Mets.
These are the kinds of lineups Seaver and Koosman had during their entire careers with the Mets.
Difference is, they were better than most who are out there today. Because they were TRAINED to go 9 or more innings each and every start. Their talent simply outlasted the other guys’ talent. They would beat McLean every time out because McLean has not been TRAINED to go 9 or more innings.
The Mets need to TRAIN their pitchers to go 9 or more innings, and they would win more games, as ‘so what’ if McLean has 6 or 7 good innings. What a waste.
to answer your last question, Jason, no!
last season’s 4 month long, slow collapse expended much of my goodwill towards the mets.
my baseball-watching seasons start slowly as i’m more focused on skiing til end of may.
@joey G : i was a big fan of dave schneck; he had some pop and i always had high hopes for him…oh well.
this season though, may not get off the runway for me if they keep this up!
i’ve watched just a handful of innings all season, and (small sample) this team is painful to watch, or better
– boring! i now sound like a football, hockey or basketball fan; baseball’s the only team sport i follow, so there you go!
Like you, I had watched very little of this year’s Mets, as my interest and affection was diverted to Michigan basketball during March Madness. Once that concluded( and there is nothing like a national championship to pull you in!) I tuned into a game last week, and now I can’t even remember which one it was or what the final score was, but it’s a safe bet that they lost. Given the west coast trip, I haven’t tuned in again.
I guess I had not really grasped how absolutely indifferent I had become over the winter about the Mets. I made a huge mistake by basically falling in love with the just-that-close 2024 team, but nothing, including signing Soto, that they’ve done since has pleased me at all since the end of that season. The opposite of love, of course, is not hate but indifference. Given that I was not able to watch the games on TV last September, I guess I’ve fallen out of the habit as well. That should be a danger signal to management. I’m a six decade devoted fan, and if I don’t care enough to turn on a Mets game -any Mets game- or plan to attend one, that’s a sad situation.
I’ll leave all the other highly questionable roster moves aside for now, but letting Alonso walk out the door without the courtesy of at least an offer from the team to which he devoted seven seasons, was a slap in the face of every Mets fan, no matter your opinion on whether it was wise to keep Pete or for how long and for how much. I felt it, and I think every other fan did as well. It was supreme arrogance on the part of Stearns worthy of an M. Donald Grant, and if Cohen approved that particular action, he shares some of the blame and anger.
Now they must reap what they have sown. Selling us this team, like selling hash and calling it steak, will not work with Mets fans. We have seen way too much arrogance like this, and the longer we’ve been around, the more we’ve seen. Any true Mets fan could have told you that stressing “run reduction” and then putting players new to the team at positions they had never played before, would not work, especially because those players were on the other side of thirty. (It’s little wonder Lindor is having trouble on both offense and defense; with Soto out, does he know anyone else on this team, let alone the rest of the infield?).
I was truly sad with the personnel moves last fall, angry at the nonsensical trades and signings, and mystified at the lineup plans. But I’ve moved through those phases, and am now at the stage where I’m having trouble being bothered to care. I will have to be won back by this current iteration of the Mets, and I wonder if they have it in them. I guess I’ll have to tolerate Soto for a few more years at least, but the only one I’d really miss is Lindor. That includes the manager and the POBO. But I’ll miss Howie Rose the most, and unless something nearly miraculous happens, he won’t get to call a championship- winning team, and I won’t get to hear him call it either,
This may, or may not, be relevant to this discussion. I was on the phone with a Spectrum rep last week looking to reduce my cable bill. I never mentioned anything about the Mets but she must have (mistakenly) sensed that I was under some kind of emotional stress because she went ahead and whacked my SNY coverage. Question is: do I want it back?
McLean is special. It’s nice to see him go out there and remind you of what it felt like to watch deGrom or Syndergaard when they were dealing (and yes, raking, too bad indeed we can’t see McLean do that).
The team as a whole, on the other hand, just does not seem very good. For the first time in years, I don’t reflexively watch the games or whole games at all. They won’t be this punchless all year, but my overall expectations are low and keep dropping. It’s not a great feeling.
Joey G,
Instead of the late, lamented Jerry Grote, THE greatest New York Mets defensive catcher, in my opinion, being on that anemic Mets lineup you’ve cited, it might instead feature such “immortal” Mets backstops of the past as Ron Hodges, Joe Nolan or Junior Ortiz.
And Duffy Dyer.
Duffy Dyer hit a three-run home run to win the first Mets game I ever saw in person, 8/17/69, first game of a double-header that kicked off an 11-game streak of the home stretch of that season. I will always think of him fondly ( although earlier I had asked my father why Grote wasn’t playing).
Ron Hodges made a living and earned a pension for 10 plus years in the majors solely because he was a left-handed hitter and famously laid the tag on Richie Zisk on the top of the wall play in ’73. He also never complained about lack of playing time. He would be a good Grote substitute for the all-Mets anemia line-up. Fielder’s Choice.
eric 1973,
When the Mets traded Duffy Dyer to the Pittsburgh Pirates for outfielder Gene Clines, I thought the Mets had finally filled the their huge gap in center field after the Mets had tried to very unsuccessfully (not to mention, very cheaply) get by in 1974 with a platoon of Don Hahn and Dave Schneck, two other Mets “immortals,” in that key defensive and offensive position.
Alas, Gene Clines was not the answer in center field for the Mets. But, outfielder Del Unser, who was acquired from the Phillies in the very unpopular trade which sent fan favorite Tug McGraw to Philadelphia, was, at least, a competent manor league outfielder.
Heck, next to the uninspiring likes Don Hahn and Dave Schneck, Del Unser almost looked liked the second coming of Mickey Mantle or Tris Speaker.
Cobra Joe,
I thought the Clines trade would be great, as getting someone from a great Pittsburgh team would have to be good. I thought the same thing when they got Frank Taveras.
Getting Unser/Stearns/Scarce for McGraw/Hahn/Schneck would have turned out better, but then they went ahead and traded Unser and Garrett for Pepe Mangual and Jim McSomething.
Great find on YouTube from 1975:
Original WOR broadcast of Joe Torre striking out against John Montefusco, stranding Clines on 1st and Millan on 2nd.
Jim Dwyer… (thoughts come clearer in the morning)
El barco se hunde