Perfect Setup

From innings one through five on Tuesday night, a perfect game took hold at Citi Field. From the sixth through ninth, four more perfect innings were thrown. Selective arithmetic indicates twenty-seven batters came up, twenty-seven batters went down in something approximating succession.

More down than up, per usual, for the New York Mets, noted perfectionists when it comes to crafting imperfect results that follow one after the other.

Nolan McLean did indeed convert the first fifteen Minnesota Twins he encountered into sullen siblings. This was the second time in four starts the second-year rookie had overwhelmed the opposition from the outset in exactly this fashion. For five innings, it was all Nolan, all the time, except for the bottom of the third, when Francisco Lindor cranked a three-run homer off former Met farmhand Simeon Woods Richardson, onto Carbonation Ridge. In the midst of this perfect never mind necessary start, it could not be said the Mets couldn’t score for McLean the way they couldn’t score for Jacob deGrom, the last Mets starting pitcher who routinely took command of every contest he commenced. Given how he utterly muffled Minnesota, McLean was reminding me hard of deGrom from those nights during Jake’s imperial phase of 2018-2021 when he’d reduce schools of Marlins and delegations of Nationals to cap-tipping spectators. In Nolan’s previous outing, at Dodger Stadium, he got me thinking about, at various junctures, 2013 Matt Harvey (whose older self was spotted in the L.A. stands watching him duel Yoshinobu Yamamoto); 1985 Doc Gooden (whose epic showdowns versus Fernando Valenzuela emanated from that very same mound); and 2010s Tom Seaver (who likely would have called the budding ace a “stud muffin,” the phrase the Franchise took to deploying to identify aces of his own ilk late in life).

Nolan is already at a level where he’s keeping between-pitches company with Met legends. DeGrom, Harvey, Gooden, and Seaver at their best cruised through lineups the way McLean does, not once in a while but as a matter of course. It didn’t last with Harvey, but at the top of his game, he was atop every game. It lasted longer with Gooden, if not forever, which was how long we assumed he’d be pulling down Cy Youngs. DeGrom couldn’t stay physically whole as a Met, and even when he did, he was compelled to frequently operate without offensive support. Seaver was Seaver. You get one of him in a lifetime, though you’ll take the occasional reasonable facsimile when one lands in your plans every fifth day.

McLean every fifth day represents the best reason for not deciding the 2026 Mets are an automatic lost cause. Prior to Tuesday night’s game, Steve Gelbs was burning sage outside the ballpark to chase off the bad vibes of an eleven-game losing streak. Candles were lit in the television booth. Images of horseshoes, positioned right side up, floated on the monitor behind Gary Cohen and Ron Darling. Everything that had a chance of going wrong had gone wrong over eleven consecutive games. Any lunge at better luck was worth a shot

The best chance to change Met luck, however, could be found on the mound. Handing McLean the ball was the tide-turning ritual this club required. You couldn’t have Juan Soto in the lineup for another 24 hours, so you figured if any among nine other hitters could put a little something together, Nolan would do the rest. By launching his bottom-of-the-third lunar exploration mission with two teammates aboard, Lindor had provided McLean the booster rocket his start cried out for. In what could be interpreted as a fit of premature jocularity, the giddy Met dugout celebrated Francisco’s blast by draping their slugger in construction gear, as if they were building a victory. The game before, at Wrigley, MJ Melendez homered in the fifth inning, putting the Mets ahead by one run. After circling the bases and eliciting heartiest congratulations from his new coworkers, MJ grabbed — with everybody’s approval evident — a handy sledgehammer and swung it like he had his bat, tacitly communicating, I guess, that the Mets were fixing to smash their losing streak to smithereens. The losing streak continued. The “good for us!” bit was altered. Perhaps the next Met to go deep will be handed a duffel bag in which to carry home the World Series trophy.

Following the ceremonial donning and subsequent removal of the vest and hard hat, McLean went back to work. A fourth perfect inning ensued. The Mets threatened to add on in the bottom of that frame. It couldn’t have hurt had at least one of their two runners who reached been driven in. They weren’t. When Nolan retired the visitors in order in the top of the fifth, it didn’t seem to matter that the Mets were up by only 3-0.

In the top of the sixth, McLean ceased being perfect when he allowed a leadoff single to Matt Wallner. Each among Jake, Matt, Doc, and Tom gave us the idea that some night he’d throw a perfect game for us. None ever did. Expecting perfection is folly. Expecting a 3-0 lead to remain impenetrable is a gamble. Major League Baseball will gladly take your action. We would have gladly accepted a couple more runs and called it a jackpot, but unbeknownst to us, that SS Mets Baserunner had already set sail from Flushing Bay and would soon be adrift in murky waters. But who wished to think about what wasn’t going perfectly? We had Nolan McLean on the mound, one Twin on base and a masterful one-hitter in progress.

What, us worry?

After getting the next two Twins, McLean faced Byron Buxton, who’s been the face of his franchise the way David Wright once fronted ours, through many years and many injuries. Buxton played for the same WBC squad McLean did just last month. In working the count to three-and-one, Nolan came up and in on Byron more than he meant to. The Team USA pitcher gestured to the Team USA hitter that he didn’t mean to administer such a close shave. An instant later, the hitter communicated no harm had been done…by doing terrible harm to the next cutter the pitcher delivered.

That thing was in orbit faster than you could say Artemis. The Mets’ lead was now 3-2. In the bottom of the sixth, the string of perfect innings continued. Not the top, but the bottom. The Mets have been revealing themselves as bottoms in every relationship they forge with their opponents of late. That tantalizing 1-2-3 magic that had belonged to McLean transferred to the Twin bullpen. Anthony Banda, Mets Journeymen Class of ’21, set down the Mets in order. In the top of the seventh, no longer perfect Nolan gave up the hits that tied the game. Mets 3 Twins 3. Our best hope to actually win a baseball game made it through six-and-two-thirds, striking out ten, qualifying for no more than a no-decision. McLean was awesome for most of his stay, just not all of it.

We’d get to make some Twin reliever acquaintances in the forthcoming frames, though it would become difficult to tell them apart. Isn’t that how it is with Twins? Justin Topa did in the bottom of the seventh what Banda had done in the bottom of the sixth, while Cole Sands did in the bottom of the eighth what Topa had done in the bottom of the seventh. Setting the Mets down in order was the new Nolan McLean is pitching a perfect game.

Huascar Brazobán did his part to maintain the tie, taking care of his four Twin batters. Devin Williams did his part to unknot everything. Our closer who’s had nothing to close in weeks busted the game as wide open as it needed to be from a Minnesota perspective. He walked Josh Bell. Shortly after pinch-runner James Outman stole second, he walked Ryan Jeffers. Kody Clemens laid down a sac bunt that led to no outs when first baseman Mark Vientos got ambitious and fired the ball to third. Too late to get Outman, too misguided to get any out, man. Luke Keaschall bounced one through the left side to give the Twins the lead, 4-3. Williams walked Wallner to give the Twins additional cushion, 5-3. Austin Warren, emerging as the people’s choice to take over as closer (whenever there will be something to close), came on and struck out the next three batters, stranding the bases loaded and earning cheers that sounded 75% sincere and 25% sarcastic. Thank you for preventing this from being worse. Thank you for not being Devin Williams..

Sands stuck around for the bottom of the ninth. The sands of time ran out for the Mets. Three up, three down, just like in the bottoms of the previous three innings, just like in the tops of the five before those. For the Twins, it was sufficient for a 5-3 win. For the Mets, it was tantamount to rolling a perfect series of boxcars: twelve batters up, twelve batters down, twelve consecutive games lost to five different teams situated in four different divisions hailing from three different time zones, the most losses they’ve strung together since August of 2002, one month after Nolan McLean turned one year old. I haven’t checked with NASA, but I strongly suspect you can see this losing streak from space.