A BLAST FORM THE PAST
Dark Knight doesn’t need to be superhero
DIFFERENT Knight. Good night.
Let’s not go completely overboard on the “Humbled Matt Harvey” angle, because he’s still a professional athlete, a job in which a large ego can serve you quite well as long as it’s properly channeled, and he can still date his way into Page Six.
But the right-hander clearly has refined a lower key since undergoing surgery last July to repair his thoracic outlet syndrome, and it came in handy for his 2017 debut.
His first start since July 4, 2016, proved a resounding success, a 6-2 victory over the Braves Thursday night at Citi Field in which the righthander used what he had — a good, not great fastball — to take care of business against one of the more underwhelming offenses he’ll face.
In this ultra-dramatic Mets opening week, with more than half of their starting rotation making their long-awaited returns from the operating room, Harvey gave up two runs — a pair of solo homers to Matt Kemp — in 6 2/3 innings. He allowed just one other hit, a Nick Markakis infield single, as he struck out four and walked none, throwing 77 pitches and 55 of those for strikes.
“I obviously didn’t strike out too many,” Harvey said. “The guys were making all of the plays behind me. They made that easy. I had a lot of confidence with keeping the ball down in the zone. I was able to keep it down for the most part, except for about 800 feet of home runs by one guy. I’m happy about the outing.”
“This guy is a special guy, and I think you’re going to look up hopefully in the middle of the summer and he’s going to be back to where he was,” manager Terry Collins said. “Now, is he going to be throwing 98 [mph] again? I don’t know. I don’t have a crystal ball. But I think Matt Harvey can pitch as good as anybody when he’s at 93 to 95 and he showed it tonight.”
He topped out at 96.3 mph, as per Brooks Baseball, with his two-seamer averaging 94.5. Collins repeatedly has made the point that Harvey can win at that level, even it marks a slight down- grade from earlier in his career; the Mets’ manager has used current Brave Bartolo Colon as an example of a righthander who throws slower with less variety than Harvey and fares quite well.
The 2013 version of Harvey pitched more like Colon in his prime than Colon in his 40s. However, as Collins noted, no one knows whether Harvey can climb back to that rare air, so serious is the condition that embarrassed him to the tune of a 4.86 ERA last year.
Since arriving at spring training, Harvey has presented a kinder and gentler version of himself, a guy who can joke about Kemp smoking a pair of dingers off him and, when asked about the “Harvey! Harvey” cheers on this night, respond, “I remember getting booed off the field last year. Kind of flipping that switch a little bit, keep moving forward, was exciting.”
When he set off alarms with low velocity and lousy results at the beginning of Grapefruit League action, a few opposing scouts wondered whether the 28-year-old was simply pacing himself out of respect for the TOS, a condition from which few pitchers have returned to their personal bests. With each outing, Harvey provides more credence to that theory.
“It’s a new year,” Harvey said. “I have obviously one less rib [that he lost in the surgery], but I feel strong and ready to go and continue to improve off of today.”
With Don Rickles passing Thursday, Harvey wasn’t the funniest person trending on Twiter. With Tim Tebow going deep in his first minor-league atbat, Harvey’s feat didn’t evoke the most gasps.
Nevertheless, the Mets’ Dark Knight gave his fans plenty over which to celebrate. Harvey, Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom have each pitched very well so far. On Friday night comes Zack Wheeler’s first start since 2014.
“This game is about confidence,” Collins said. Harvey appears confident, not overconfident. Given the unknown that awaits him, that’s as sound an approach as a fallen superhero can have.