ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers have to hit Nolan McLean’s fastball first to have a chance against the rest of his pitches, manager Skip Schumaker said Wednesday.
McLean, a rookie right-hander, starts for the New York Mets at 7:05 p.m. CT at Globe Life Field. A night earlier, Sean Manaea struck out 9 Rangers over 6 innings in New York’s 6-3 win. Cody Bradford starts for Texas.
The Rangers and Houston Astros are tied atop the American League West at 78-79 with five games left. Houston won the season series 9-4 and holds the tiebreaker.
Schumaker spoke on The Skip Schumaker Show, the pregame segment Rangers Sports Network posts before games.
Nolan McLean Faces Texas Rangers For Second Time
McLean is 11-10 with a 3.18 ERA and has 189 strikeouts and 69 walks over 172 2/3 innings in 30 starts. His last start came Sept. 17 against the Philadelphia Phillies. He allowed 7 hits, 1 earned run, and 3 walks with 5 strikeouts over 6 innings on 82 pitches and took the loss in a 3-0 game.
On Sept. 14, 2025, at Citi Field, McLean held Texas scoreless over 6 innings with 7 strikeouts in his sixth career start. The Rangers took his first 18 pitches that afternoon, amNY reported.
“He spins it, maybe the highest spin of any curveball slider, and he’s got a 93-mile-an-hour cutter as well and 97 sinker,” Schumaker said. “So he’s got them all. He’s a very good young pitcher, one of the best young pitchers in the league in my opinion. And I think he had a really good outing against the Phillies the last game.”
“And hopefully we figure out a way to move the fastball forward because we can’t get caught in between,” Schumaker continued. “That curveball, the spin is really hard to hit. But you’ve got to hit the fastball. It’s the only way you’re going to be able to hit that slider is make sure that you can hit the fastball first. And getting caught in between again is not a good recipe like we know what happened yesterday, so hopefully we can be on time for the heater today.”
McLean made his major league debut Aug. 16, 2025. He pitched for the United States in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, where the Americans took silver.
Texas Rangers Scored Three Runs Off Sean Manaea
Manaea (6-7) allowed 3 hits, 2 earned runs, and 2 walks with 9 strikeouts over 6 innings. Josh Jung tied the game 1-1 with an RBI double in the third. In the fourth, Manaea hit two batters, and sacrifice flies by Elias Díaz and Wyatt Langford put Texas ahead 3-2. The Rangers did not score again.
After Tuesday’s game, Schumaker said Texas struck out too many times but took quality at-bats with runners in scoring position. Díaz and Langford both drove balls to the warning track on their sacrifice flies.
“There’s some frustrated hitters yesterday because the goal was to move the fastball forward,” Schumaker explained. “I mean, that was literally what we wanted to do. We didn’t want to get caught in between with the changeup or slider. We wanted to be on top of the fastball. And the guys had the game plan, but it’s about execution. And unfortunately, we just didn’t execute.”
“I will say, though, that we had bases loaded and we had traffic,” Schumaker continued. “And gosh, [we] were like a foot away from a grand slam. And Wyatt hit the ball on the nose with bases loaded as well. We got a run in from sacrifice flies. But I felt like that inning we could have easily gotten a crooked number on the board because of some really good swings. Just unfortunately, the balls were caught.”
Langford leads off Wednesday in left field. Texas has four left-handed hitters in the lineup against McLean: Evan Carter, Nicky Lopez, Corey Seager, and Brandon Nimmo. Seager and Nimmo were the only left-handed hitters Texas started against Manaea.
The series ends Thursday at 1:35 p.m. CT.
