NOW MATT’S

JUPITER, Fla. — After watching Matt Harvey grind through three innings on Tuesday, a scout at Roger Dean Stadium put down his radar gun and nodded at his colleague. “Maybe not the Matt Harvey of 2013 or 2015,” the scout said, “but that is certainly a much, much better Matt Harvey than we’ve seen in recent years.” In his final Grapefruit League tuneup, Harvey is starting to show who he is going to be. And the Mets can be comfortable going into the season with this version of him. The righthander allowed one run on five hits. He struck out five and walked two in 5.1 innings work as the Mets beat the Cardinals 8-7. Harvey threw 90 pitches, 53 for strikes. “I think being able to get up to 90 pitches like I did today and still feel good and still feel like I can continue to go,” Harvey said. “That’s the key, looking at the last couple of outings, I think I am just putting everything together, all the pieces, fastball location, slider, changeup. I think once you put that together and get the final product, it’s what I expected to happen today. It was good.”

Harvey’s fastball sat at 92-93 mph and touched 95, including his 90th pitch. He mixed in most of his pitches. The 28-yearold worked around runners in three innings, allowing the run on a homer by Paul DeJong.

He struck out Dexter Fowler and Tommy Pham on really nice changeups in the first inning, and got Marcell Ozuna and Francisco Pena out looking on fastballs. In the fifth, he fired a 95-mph fastball past a swinging Pham for a strikeout. His slider ramped up to 90-91 mph Tuesday, something he struggled with the past two years. “It doesn’t have the same bite on it,” an AL scout said, “but it’s not bad at all.” Those comparisons are over for Harvey. He has made it clear all spring that he doesn’t want to talk about the last two years, when he struggled with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome and then the aftermath of that surgery. When Mickey Callaway came in last fall, he made it clear he didn’t want Harvey coming into 2018 with the baggage and