MATT’S SWAG
TAMPA — The ball had just rocketed off Giancarlo Stanton’s bat and was exiting Steinbrenner field when Matt Harvey looked up and turned around to watch it drop into the stands beyond rightcenter field. The Mets righthander took a deep breath. He did not drop his head, didn’t pace around the mound or tug on his jersey.
It was a tough ending to what was actually a solid day for Harvey. The righthander, who has struggled for the last two seasons, had an ugly stat line in the Mets’ 10-3 loss to the Yankees, but everyone can see he is starting to regain his confidence.
While his third spring start will be remembered for the monstrous home run he gave up to Stanton, the outfielder’s first as a Yankee, it was an otherwise good sign for the Mets.
Harvey allowed five runs on six hits. He hit a batter, walked one and struck out two in 4.2 innings work. He threw 61 pitches, 46 for strikes with his fastball sitting 92-94 miles an hour topping out at 96.
It was better than the stat line looked. The top of the Yankees’ lineup — Brett Gardner, Aaron Judge and Stanton — had four of the hits against Harvey and he dominated the rest of the lineup, which admittedly was largely fringe players.
But, if Saturday is how a bad day is going to go for Harvey, then the Mets rotation is going to be fine. Mickey Callaway actually liked what he saw out of Harvey.
“I thought it was good. I think that he threw strike one, induced a lot of ground balls, he just kept on attacking. Once we layer on some information, he probably threw some pitches he probably wouldn’t throw during the regular season that maybe cost him some runs, that we’re not too worried about,” the Mets manager said. “I thought he looked really good. That last batter of the game, he was throwing 95. That was encouraging, pitching into the fifth, very few pitches per inning.”
What Callaway liked was watching Harvey attacking hitters with his fastball, a sign that a pitcher has confidence in his stuff.
Harvey got a first-pitch strike on 10 of the 21 batters he faced. He kept battling back all day.
After giving up back-to-back singles to Gardner and Judge and then hitting Stanton to load the bases in the first inning, Harvey continued to go after hitters and escaped without too much damage. He gave up an RBI-single to Brandon Drury and a run-scoring fielder’s choice to Tyler Austin, but got out of the inning having allowed just two runs.
“It could have gotten a lot