While Steven Matz has put together a nice career, based on his first two starts, he looks like he would’ve been the best of the bunch. Jacob deGrom and Zack Wheeler, clearly the two best pitchers in this batch (thus far), looked far more pedestrian in their first two starts than their careers would indicate now.

By the time Nolan McLean returned to the mound Friday for the fourth inning — a danger zone for Mets starting pitchers — he had plenty of latitude.

Nolan McLean’s impressive big league debut served as a reminder of how the Mets began climbing from the edge of disaster to the playoffs almost exactly nine years ago.