What a difference a strong start makes.

Nolan McLean stuck to his fastball against the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday afternoon at Great American Ballpark, giving the Mets a badly needed pitching performance in a 9-1 win.

The Mets have been tinkering with their rookie right-hander over the last few months in an attempt to get his stuff to land in the strike zone. McLean’s spinning pitches tend to spin right past bats, but also right out of the zone more often than he or the Mets would like. It’s resulted in inefficient outings and a higher-than-usual amount of walks.

Maybe they’ve tinkered too much.

His last time out, McLean was visibly angry following a four-inning, four-walk outing. But Wednesday in Cincinnati, he walked only one. McLean (4-4) gave the Mets seven strong innings, holding the Reds to only one unearned run on three hits, striking out nine, one shy of matching his season-high mark.

He pounded the zone with his four-seam fastball, a pitch he typically mixes in often, but doesn’t rely on as heavily as he did in this game. The key difference was that McLean was able to command his fastball to work ahead in the count and use his other pitches effectively.

It helped that the offense gave him a three-run lead to pitch behind in the third inning.

In the first two games of the series in Cincinnati, the Mets were playing from behind right from the jump, with right-hander Tobias Myers and Kodai Senga giving up leads in the first innings. The lineup got runners on base, but stranded most of them, suffering two bad losses.

This time, Bo Bichette and Juan Soto each had three hits. Soto, Mark Vientos and A.J. Ewing drove in two runs each. The lineup went 7-for-13 with runners in scoring position. It was almost like watching a different team.

The Mets have a remarkable ability to look different and play differently on a daily basis. Over the course of a 162-game season, this will happen with every team, but with the Mets, it’s been far too common this year. You really never know which team you’ll get, but Wednesday, they got one that avoided a sweep.

They took seven earned runs off left-hander Nick Lodolo, chasing him from the game in the fifth inning. They scored three in the third inning, rallying with two outs and Luis Torrens on third base. Torrens led off the inning with a single, and was moved over on a bunt and a ground-ball out before Bichette walked to keep the inning alive.

Soto flared one to shallow center field to score Torrens, and Marcus Semien lined one to left to score Bichette. Lodolo gave up a third straight single to Vientos to score Soto, and give the Mets a 3-0 lead. It was cut to 3-1 in the bottom of the inning after an error by Vientos at first base contributed to a run, but the Mets were able to stop a rally from forming.

Lodolo (2-2) got the first out of the fifth inning before giving up another three singles to load the bases. A fly ball from Vientos drove in the first run, and a single to left by Francisco Alvarez scored another. Ohio native Ewing, who grew up attending games in Cincinnati, drove a sinker off the left-center field wall for a two-run double.

The Reds (35-38) then pulled Lodolo for right-hander Chris Paddack. The Mets (33-41) took two off him in the top of the eighth.

The road trip continues Thursday in Philadelphia. It’s a chance for the Mets to gain some crucial divisional wins.

_____

©2026 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.