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By Jackson Roberts
Contributing Sports Writer
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Starting pitching has been the deciding factor all season for the New York Mets, during good stretches and bad.
New York got off to a National League-best 45-24 start thanks to fantastic contributions from a number of unlikely heroes in the rotation. But some of those heroes have come back to earth, while others have been lost for the season to injuries.
With marquee names like Clay Holmes and Kodai Senga struggling, the Mets have turned things over to the youth movement, as top prospects Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong both made their big-league debuts in August.
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Tong was impressive in his first outing, and McLean has already had three starts, and they've all been wins. There's an argument to be made that he's already the ace of the staff, sporting a 0.89 ERA and 0.69 WHIP through 20 1/3 innings.
On Tuesday, ESPN's Dan Mullen made a bold prediction. Not only does he believe McLean will be in the Mets' playoff rotation, but he thinks the 24-year-old will get the ball at the earliest possible opportunity.
"Nolan McLean will be the NL's best pitcher not named Paul Skenes over the final month and take the mound in October -- as the Mets' Game 1 playoff starter," Mullen forecasted.
Teams want length from a Game 1 starter, and McLean showed he's as capable of that, if not more, as any other Mets starter in his last start, an eight-inning masterpiece against the Philadelphia Phillies.
New York's other top candidate for a Game 1 start has to be All-Star lefty David Peterson, who sports a 3.61 ERA through 26 starts. Holmes, Senga, Tong, and Sean Manaea are in the mix as well.
The Mets still have to secure a playoff spot as well, as they lead the Cincinnati Reds by four games for the final NL wild card spot and trail the Phillies by six games in the division entering play on Tuesday.
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