IT’S A HARVEY THROWBACK!
Ace turns up heat, overpowers Nats in return
His demeanor on the mound, the way he carries himself, the way he gets ready. He was ready a long time ago for (today). ... Nothing he does surprises you. He’s an impressive guy. TERRY COLLINS ON MATT HARVEY
WASHINGTON — Matt Harvey was the first player in the visiting clubhouse at Nationals Park Thursday morning. He did his early morning pregame work quietly, stopped in to chat with his manager and then watched video of the Nationals hitters with pitching coach Dan Warthen and catcher Travis d’Arnaud. He paced around the clubhouse a few times.
It had been nearly 20 months — 593 days — since he had been on a major-league mound in a regularseason game, so Harvey was anxious to just get back to work.
At 11 a.m., he could not wait anymore. The big righthander wandered over to the speaker system near his locker, plugged in his iPhone and blasted Aerosmith’s “Back in the Saddle.” He clearly was back, indeed. For the first time since Aug. 24, 2013, when he walked off the mound at Citi Field with forearm stiffness that signaled the end of his and the Mets’ hopes for 2014 and led to him having Tommy John surgery, it was finally his day again.
Just over two hours later, he made sure the Nationals and the rest of baseball knew it, too. He unleashed a 96 mile-per-hour fastball to Michael Taylor at 1:23 p.m. and went on to throw six scoreless innings as the Mets beat the Nationals, 6-3.
Harvey scattered four hits and struck out nine, walking one. He threw 91 pitches, 62 for strikes.
“Yeah, I think the long anticipation was setting in,” Harvey said. “Today was a good start, and obviously it’s good to get the win. We needed that series and now we can go to Atlanta and prepare for my next start.”
Harvey’s victory gave the Mets (2-1) their first series win of the season and their first over the Nationals (1-2) since September of 2013.
That was just after Harvey went down and was dealing with the idea that he would need surgery. He is now 17-and-a-half months past that October 2013 surgery and he has said he has returned with a new focus but the same old fierce competitiveness.
He struck out Taylor and then walked Yunel Escobar before facing Nationals slugger Bryce Harper. Harvey started him off with first-pitch curveball for a strike and got him swinging on a 97-mph high heater. Harvey would go on to strike out Harper two more times, twice with runners on base. “Any time I get runners on base, I am trying to limit the damage, that just happened to be against him,” Harvey said. “In those situations you really have to stay fine. Obviously we watched those two games and his bat was pretty hot. . . . I think for me, really focusing on him was kind of a big challenge today.”
Harvey gave up a two-out double in the second to Ian Desmond and then had two runners on when he struck out Jose Lobaton with a nasty curveball to end the inning. That was really his last challenge, as he got stronger and more dominating as he went on. “His demeanor on the mound, the way he carries himself, the way he gets ready. He was ready a long time ago for (today),” Terry Collins said. “He had a big challenge, he knew who he was facing. He and I talked in spring training and I told him he was going to face the Nationals and he was pretty geeked up a month ago.
“Nothing he does surprises you,” the Mets manager said. “He’s an impressive guy.”
The Mets gave him a lot to work with, too. They battered Stephen Strasburg for six runs (three earned) on nine hits and a walk. They also got help from Nationals shortstop Ian Desmond, who committed his third error of the series, leading to a four-run third. D’Arnaud, who went 5-for-11 in the series with four RBI, drove in two runs on Thursday and threw out Yunel Escobar who tried to steal second to end the first inning. For Harvey, that six-run lead — which the Nats cut to three against the Mets bullpen — made his return that much easier. “I don’t know if I could draw it up any better for me really,” Harvey said of his day. “It was nice to have that six-run lead. That let me really pound the zone, and I thank the offense for that. It made it easy to throw strikes and it was a good day.”