NEW YORK (AP) — Three games into his major league career, Nolan McLean has already accomplished something Tom Seaver, Dwight Gooden, Jacob deGrom or anyone else wearing a New York Mets uniform could not.
McLean became the first Mets pitcher to win his first three MLB starts, tossing eight marvelous innings Wednesday night in a 6-0 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies that completed a three-game sweep.
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New York Mets pitcher Nolan McLean throws during the second inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
New York Mets pitcher Nolan McLean walks to the dugout during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
New York Mets pitcher Nolan McLean throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
New York Mets catcher Hayden Senger, left, and pitcher Nolan McLean, right, walk to the dugout during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
New York Mets pitcher Nolan McLean reacts after defeating the Philadelphia Phillies during a baseball game, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
“He’s a stud, man,” Mets infielder Mark Vientos said with a grin. “It’s so fun to be a part of what he does on day-to-day basis.”
Facing the Phillies, who entered Wednesday with the second-best batting average in the majors, the 24-year-old right-hander allowed four hits and walked none with six strikeouts. He threw 95 pitches — just 55 through the first six innings.
“Top to bottom, they’re stacked with hitters,” McLean said. “So I definitely knew I had to bring some good stuff tonight.”
Showing off an arsenal that includes a sharp-breaking curveball in the high 70s (mph), a sweeper and a fastball clocked in the mid-90s, McLean retired 15 straight batters following Alec Bohm’s second-inning single and faced the minimum into the seventh.
“All I can say is wow,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “It’s just everything about the kid — not only what we’re seeing on the mound, just the way he carries himself. He’s got electric stuff, but he’s got pitchability. He knows what he’s doing on the mound. He knows how to manipulate the baseball. He knows what hitters are trying to do. He’s not afraid to use all his pitches.”
The Phillies mounted their lone threat in the eighth, when Bohm and Max Kepler opened the inning with singles. McLean preserved the shutout by retiring Nick Castellanos and Bryson Stott on medium-depth flyouts and inducing Harrison Bader to hit a squibber back toward the mound.
“I felt like he had good stuff,” Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber said. “He moves the ball around really good and he was filling up the zone. I felt like he made some pitches when he needed to make some pitches.”
McLean pounded his right fist into his glove as the Citi Field crowd of 41,893 roared.
“He doesn’t shy away from big moments,” Vientos said. “Three starts — it’s been big moments and good teams and he’s done his thing.”
New York has gone 8-3 since McLean was called up from the minors to pull within four games of the NL East-leading Phillies. McLean, who went seven innings in a 12-7 win at Atlanta last Friday, and All-Star lefty David Peterson are the only Mets starters to last at least seven innings since June 2.
“We’ve been missing that type of performance pretty much the whole year,” Mendoza said.
McLean lowered his ERA to 0.89 — also the lowest in team history for a rookie in his first three starts. Seaver, a 300-game winner and Hall of Famer, held the mark previously with a 1.19 ERA over his first three starts in 1967.
McLean’s 21 strikeouts are tied with teammate Kodai Senga for the third-most in franchise annals through three career starts, behind only Matt Harvey (2012).
“I’ve always been a believer in my stuff. I’m a confident guy,” McLean said. “Obviously, the hitters here are the best in the world and I know that. But I also know I have good stuff. And if I go out there and execute, I can get a lot of guys out as well.”
Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez, on the injured list with a UCL sprain in his right thumb, exited his first rehab game with Triple-A Syracuse after he was hit by a pitch on his left pinkie.
Alvarez was 1 for 2 with a double before leaving the game.
“He’s getting checked out right now,” Mendoza said.
Jose Siri (broken left leg) and Jesse Winker (back) also made their rehab debuts for Class-A St. Lucie. Siri, who hasn’t played for the Mets since April 12, drew a walk and was hit by a pitch. Winker, on the injured list since July 11, was 0 for 2.
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New York Mets pitcher Nolan McLean throws during the second inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
New York Mets pitcher Nolan McLean walks to the dugout during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
New York Mets pitcher Nolan McLean throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
New York Mets catcher Hayden Senger, left, and pitcher Nolan McLean, right, walk to the dugout during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
New York Mets pitcher Nolan McLean reacts after defeating the Philadelphia Phillies during a baseball game, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
HAVANA (AP) — Cuban soldiers wearing white gloves marched out of a plane on Thursday carrying urns with the remains of the 32 Cuban officers killed during a stunning U.S. attack on Venezuela as trumpets and drums played solemnly at Havana's airport.
Nearby, thousands of Cubans lined one of Havana’s most iconic streets to await the bodies of colonels, lieutenants, majors and captains as the island remained under threat by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The soldiers' shoes clacked as they marched stiff-legged into the headquarters of the Ministry of the Armed Forces, next to Revolution Square, with the urns and placed them on a long table next to the pictures of those killed so people could pay their respects.
Thursday’s mass funeral was only one of a handful that the Cuban government has organized in almost half a century.
Hours earlier, state television showed images of more than a dozen wounded people described as “combatants” accompanied by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez arriving Wednesday night from Venezuela. Some were in wheelchairs.
Those injured and the remains of those killed arrived as tensions grow between Cuba and the U.S., with Trump recently demanding that the Caribbean country make a deal with him before it is “too late.” He did not explain what kind of deal.
Trump also has said that Cuba will no longer live off Venezuela's money and oil. Experts warn that the abrupt end of oil shipments could be catastrophic for Cuba, which is already struggling with serious blackouts and a crumbling power grid.
Officials unfurled a massive flag at Havana's airport as President Miguel Díaz-Canel, clad in military garb as commander of Cuba's Armed Forces, stood silent next to former President Raúl Castro, with what appeared to be the relatives of those killed looking on nearby.
Cuban Interior Minister Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casa said Venezuela was not a distant land for those killed, but a “natural extension of their homeland.”
“The enemy speaks to an audience of high-precision operations, of troops, of elites, of supremacy,” Álvarez said in apparent reference to the U.S. “We, on the other hand, speak of faces, of families who have lost a father, a son, a husband, a brother.”
Álvarez called those slain “heroes,” saying that they were an example of honor and “a lesson for those who waver.”
“We reaffirm that if this painful chapter of history has demonstrated anything, it is that imperialism may possess more sophisticated weapons; it may have immense material wealth; it may buy the minds of the wavering; but there is one thing it will never be able to buy: the dignity of the Cuban people,” he said.
Thousands of Cubans lined a street where motorcycles and military vehicles thundered by with the remains of those killed.
“They are people willing to defend their principles and values, and we must pay tribute to them,” said Carmen Gómez, a 58-year-old industrial designer, adding that she hopes no one invades given the ongoing threats.
When asked why she showed up despite the difficulties Cubans face, Gómez replied, “It’s because of the sense of patriotism that Cubans have, and that will always unite us.”
Cuba recently released the names and ranks of 32 military personnel — ranging in age from 26 to 60 — who were part of the security detail of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro during the raid on his residence on January 3. They included members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, the island’s two security agencies.
Cuban and Venezuelan authorities have said that the uniformed personnel were part of protection agreements between the two countries.
A demonstration was planned for Friday across from the U.S. Embassy in an open-air forum known as the Anti-Imperialist Tribune. Officials have said they expect the demonstration to be massive.
“People are upset and hurt. There’s a lot of talk on social media; but many do believe that the dead are martyrs” of a historic struggle against the United States, analyst and former diplomat Carlos Alzugaray told The Associated Press.
In October 1976, then-President Fidel Castro led a massive demonstration to bid farewell to the 73 people killed in the bombing of a Cubana de Aviación civilian flight financed by anti-revolutionary leaders in the U.S. Most of the victims were Cuban athletes.
In December 1989, officials organized “Operation Tribute” to honor the more than 2,000 Cuban combatants who died in Angola during Cuba’s participation in the war that defeated the South African army and ended the apartheid system. In October 1997, memorial services were held following the arrival of the remains of guerrilla commander Ernesto “Che” Guevara and six of his comrades, who died in 1967.
The latest mass burial is critical to honor those slain, said José Luis Piñeiro, a 60-year-old doctor who lived four years in Venezuela.
“I don’t think Trump is crazy enough to come and enter a country like this, ours, and if he does, he’s going to have to take an aspirin or some painkiller to avoid the headache he’s going to get,” Piñeiro said. “These were 32 heroes who fought him. Can you imagine an entire nation? He’s going to lose.”
A day before the remains of those killed arrived in Cuba, the U.S. announced $3 million in additional aid to help the island recover from the catastrophic Hurricane Melissa.
The first flight took off on Wednesday, and a second flight was scheduled for Friday. A commercial vessel also will deliver food and other supplies.
Jeremy Lewin, the State Department official in charge of foreign assistance, said the U.S. was working with Cuba’s Catholic Church to distribute aid.
“There’s nothing political about cans of tuna and rice and beans and pasta,” he said Thursday, warning that the Cuban government should not intervene or divert supplies. “We will be watching, and we will hold them accountable.”
Lewin said he saw no contradiction between cutting off Venezuelan oil and offering aid, saying that “the Cuban regime was taking illegitimate profits from the narco-terrorists.”
He said the U.S. hopes that delivering aid via the Catholic Church will be part of a new and broader push to deliver assistance directly to the Cuban people.
“Ultimately, the regime has to make a choice," Lewin said. “Step down or better provide towards people.”
Lewin added that “if there was no regime,” the U.S. would provide “billions and billions of dollars” in assistance, as well as investment and development: “That’s what lies on the other side of the regime for the Cuban people.”
The announcement riled Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez.
“The U.S. government is exploiting what appears to be a humanitarian gesture for opportunistic and politically manipulative purposes,” he said in a statement. “As a matter of principle, Cuba does not oppose assistance from governments or organizations, provided it benefits the people and the needs of those affected are not used for political gain under the guise of humanitarian aid.”
Coto contributed from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
Military members pay their last respects to Cuban officers who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, at the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces where the urns containing the remains are displayed during a ceremony in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Soldiers carry urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, at the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (Adalberto Roque /Pool Photo via AP)
A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
People line the streets of Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, to watch the motorcade carrying urns containing the remains of Cuban officers killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Workers fly the Cuban flag at half-staff at the Anti-Imperialist Tribune near the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, in memory of Cubans who died two days before in Caracas, Venezuela during the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by U.S. forces. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
