Nolan McLean is giving the Mets two different pitchers, and only one of them helps

Nolan McLean has given the Mets two completely different pitchers in the span of five days, and both of them were real.

On June 12 against Atlanta, he lasted four innings, walked four, and gave up two runs while striking out six. On June 17 against Cincinnati, he went seven, struck out nine, walked one, and did not allow an earned run. Same stuff, same arm, same rookie. Wildly different results.

That swing is the entire story of McLean’s season so far.

The talent has never been the question

McLean is sitting at a 3.67 ERA over 83.1 innings this season, with a strikeout rate that has stayed close to 11 per nine all year. Those are good baseline numbers for a 24-year-old working through his first full season as a starter. He drew real national attention as one of the better rookies in the league a month into the year, and the swings since then have made him harder to pin down, not less talented.

The walk rate is where the inconsistency actually lives. When McLean is locating his secondary pitches, hitters cannot do much with him, evidenced by the nine strikeouts against the Reds. When he is missing, like the four walks in four innings against Atlanta, the free passes pile up fast, and a pitcher still feeling his way through his first full workload does not always have the experience to fix it mid-game.

This is normal for a young pitcher logging his first full season. It is also exactly the kind of inconsistency that turns a potential building block into a question mark if it does not even out by August.

The Mets need the version that showed up against Cincinnati

New York is 33-41 and has spent most of the year searching for any rotation arm who can be trusted every fifth day. The rotation desperation has already been exposed once this season, and McLean is one of the few internal answers the Mets actually have.

That is what makes his outing against the Reds matter beyond one box score. Going seven innings is something he has done just three times in fifteen starts this season. If that start was a real correction and not a one-off against a fading Cincinnati lineup, the Mets get a real piece behind whatever they decide to do at the deadline. If it was a blip between rough outings, the inconsistency keeps making every fifth day a coin flip.

The next two starts will say more than the last two

I do not think one dominant start erases a walk-heavy outing against Atlanta, and I do not think the walks against Atlanta erase what McLean is capable of when he is right. Both performances are real, and that is the uncomfortable part for the Mets.

David Stearns and the coaching staff have to figure out whether the command issues are mechanical, a fatigue point in a long rookie season, or just the normal variance of a 24-year-old still learning how to repeat his delivery start to start. The answer shapes how much they can lean on him in the second half.

McLean has the stuff to be a real piece of this rotation. The next two starts will tell the Mets which version they are actually building around.