Nolan McLean may be finding his form again.

His struggles in May seemed like a shock to the system, both to himself and to fans, who had become accustomed to his instant dominance at the major league level. But, after his ERA rose to the mid-4.00s at one point, he has it back down to 3.52 after another good start on Friday.

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It was a sluggish game for the Mets — a 6-2 loss to the Red Sox — and that lack of crispness affected McLean in the early going. Juan Soto dropped a fly ball in left, and McLean surrendered an untimely hit that drove in two runs.

That pair of unearned runs was the only damage McLean allowed.

He went on to throw six strong innings, striking out seven and allowing zero earned runs on five hits and two walks. It was the second time in McLean’s last three starts that he’s allowed no earned runs over six innings.

Despite all of McLean’s devastating and high-spin breaking offerings, the pitch that gave him the most success on Friday was his four-seam fastball, with six whiffs out of 19 swings. His four-seam, sinker, curveball and changeup have all been effective pitches this year; the trouble has come on his sweeper and cutter. He threw comparatively few sweepers and cutters on Friday, though, with nine and seven, respectively, out of his 98 pitches.

McLean had a rough outing on June 24, giving up six runs in six innings, but that’s been his only bad start out of his last eight appearances. Since and including his start on May 31, he owns a 2.35 ERA.

That’s more like the McLean Mets fans were introduced to.

When McLean was struggling, a point constantly stressed in the commentary surrounding him was that he’s still so new to the big leagues. After all, McLean still isn’t that far removed from being a two-way player in the minors. He had an unusual bout of success right away upon his promotion, so it’s fair to say that he was likely to regress and deal with MLB hitters’ adjustments to him as he got more innings.

Despite the growing pains, McLean is still having a pretty nice first full season in the majors, relative to most standards. He ranks 30th among qualified starters in ERA, a shade ahead of Paul Skenes and slightly worse than Jacob deGrom. He has the seventh-most strikeouts with 125. His 10.48 SO/9 ranks 11th.

Between the two seasons since McLean has joined the Mets, he’s up to 27 starts, which is nearly a full season’s worth of starts. He’s posted a 3.07 ERA to begin his MLB career while limiting hitters to a .207 average.

The gist of it is: McLean is still really good. After the dominance, struggles and return to form, it feels like he’s been in the majors for much longer, but he’s still just getting started on his MLB career. He’s found his footing again after a brief tumble and is establishing himself as an exciting arm to have near the top of the rotation for the foreseeable future.