Nolan McLean recovers after early homer to deliver pretty impressive outing in Mets win

Nolan McLean gave up a three-run home run to the fifth batter he saw Thursday afternoon, but the Mets rookie still pieced together an encouraging outing.  Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Mike Puma about the inside buzz on the Mets.This despite clearly not having his “A” game in a 9-4 Mets win over an equally-flailing Tigers team that secured their first series sweep of the season.

After some early struggles with his command, McLean pushed through seven innings and finished with six hits, three earned runs and seven strikeouts. “I mean, got to take it for what it was,” McLean said after the victory.“Obviously, gave up the homer in the first, so it was a quick 3-0 lead for them.

Like I’ve talked about a bunch, my job is to go as deep as I can regardless on how well I’m pitching or not.So I’m pretty happy with getting into the seventh today.” The 24-year-old exploded with emotion after capping the seventh with back-to-back strikeouts of Jake Rogers and Kevin McGonigle. In the wake of his slow start, McLean said he had to find what was working and get creative “a couple of times” to find the pitches that were connecting. He found his curveball late, he noted, before his sinker control came back to him a bit. “Man, he was pretty impressive,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said.

“Because not only did he give up that three-run homer, but I thought stuff-wise today was a little light.The sinker wasn’t there — just it took him a while.

And for him to go seven innings there, it was pretty impressive.He fought, he battled, and he just kept trusting his pitches.

I thought him and [catcher Hunter] Senger were on a really good page there. “He takes a lot.You get hit on the face the first inning and then you just see it, stuff-wise, it was a battle for him.”Juan Soto was in the lineup after the Mets’ $765 million man exited Wednesday night’s game due to an injury scare.

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