Harvey unable to get up after his latest fall
IT WAS an event every time he showed up as the glowering Dark Knight, electrifying Citi Field with his defiance and beast-mode swagger ... Gotham’s Dark Knight in shining armor all those years after Tom Seaver and Doc Gooden. It is a long and lonely road back from Tommy John and thoracic outlet syndrome surgeries and Matt Harvey stepped in another pothole Friday night that is certain to sadden those romantic loyalists willing to forgive his occasional migrained selfishness and continue to yearn for their seething, sneering ace of yesteryear. Gone for now are the days the Mets would look to the Dark Knight to rescue them. These are the days when Harvey looks to the Mets to rescue him. And if they didn’t have a pig pen in Flushing, they might have, rather than losing 12-7 to the Pirates. It was a Michael Conforto home run and a Neil Walker triple that left right fielder Gregory Polanco temporarily frozen, and Lucas Duda’s second home run of the night in the five-run fifth that lifted the Mets to a 7-4 lead. The Dark Knight would have summoned every ounce of his killer instinct and would have slammed the door. Matt Harvey, on the other hand, was yanked in the sixth after surrendering a solo homer to Josh Bell before walking Andrew McCutchen on his 102nd pitch. He was greeted with a smattering of polite applause and boos. “I have to go out and do a better job of coming back in the dugout after the sixth with a zero,” Harvey said, “and tonight I just wasn’t able to do that.” Paul Sewald, playing the uncharacteristic part of The Arsonist, promptly surrendered a three-run homer to Elias Diaz and then walked in a run with the bases loaded in the ghastly seven-run Pittsburgh sixth that doomed the Mets to defeat.
“From the first inning on, I battled with location,” Harvey said, “but other than that, it was just not my night.”
For Harvey, this has become a desperate game of Lost and Found.
Whatever he had found in his previous two starts, he lost.
Harvey (four walks, one hit batter) had appeared on the brink of a firstround knockout. He had no command or control. A single by Josh Harrison sandwiched between walks to Adam Frazier and Polanco had the bases loaded with nobody out and pitching coach Dan Warthen chugging to the mound.
Harvey, who had stepped behind the mound to collect himself, nodded as his pitching coach spoke. He had already thrown 19 pitches.
This is where Harvey made a stand. By the end of the inning, he had thrown 33 pitches, but trailed only 1-0 and then immediately found himself in such a groove that he struck out five of six batters, three looking. Then he lost it. Harvey walked David Freese leading off the fourth and soon the bases were loaded with no outs again. His fastball, which had reached 96 mph, was settling in at 93 and 94. If that.
“I saw in the second inning,” Terry Collins said, “he threw one pitch and I asked Dan, ‘I hope that was a slider.’ Dan said, ‘I think it was a fastball,’ and it was 90.”
Harvey got Jordy Mercer to foul out to third baseman Wilmer Flores, but Diaz ripped a curve into left-center field to clear the bases. Pirates 4, Mets 2.
Give the Dark Knight two runs, and once upon a time it was over.
Give Matt Harvey four runs, and there are no guarantees that it is.
“I get the confidence thing with Matt, I understand it all,” Collins said. “But we gotta get this guy in a place where as we get into the summertime, we feel confident that he can get us deep into the game.”
From The Dark Knight Rises, to Matt Harvey falls, and he’s still fighting to get back up.