An overcast Memorial Day at Citi Field gave the home team one big win and one universal truth. Had the Mets been forced to choose between the two, they surely would have opted for the latter:
The big galoot is still worth it.
For all of the agita Matt Harvey creates, causes and catalogues, he more than repays it when he pitches like he did Monday afternoon. The right-hander’s best effort of the 2016 season produced a 1-0 victory for the Mets over the White Sox, stopping a two-game losing streak for Terry Collins’ guys and a personal three-game losing streak for Harvey and, in the process, rewarding the Mets for keeping Harvey in their starting rotation.
“I think it’s a first step,” said Harvey, who limited the sinking White Sox to a pair of singles and a walk in a season-high seven innings, striking out six. “Obviously this doesn’t mean anything unless I continue this, what we’ve been working on. It’s a work in progress.”
Yet for sure, it’s not work for naught. Harvey’s four-seam fastball averaged 96.5 mph, according to the Pitch f/x readings (thanks, Brooks Baseball) with a high of 99.2 mph. His average four-seamer velocity through his first 10 starts had been 94.0 mph, according to FanGraphs.
Common sense favored the 27-year-old not being done. However, when you ran this equation with some of the particular factors — Harvey’s massive workload last season, his diminished stuff and his uniquely difficult personality, replete with a love of the night life — you wondered a little more than you would with another pitcher’s bad stretch. As Harvey himself noted, this one start doesn’t mean he’s cured, not with his ERA remaining in the garish zone at 5.37. What it does mean is that his better-pitching self hasn’t departed the premises altogether.
“For all the notoriety of him struggling, he wasn’t struggling today,” said White Sox manager Robin Ventura, whose club owns a seven-game losing streak. “I thought he threw great. Looked like he had great command, everything. We couldn’t get anything going.”
Ventura did his old employers a solid when he asked No. 3 hitter Melky Cabrera to lay down a seventh-inning sacrifice bunt with teammates on first and second and none out. Melky did his job, moving Jose Abreu and Adam Eaton to second and third, but New Jersey native Todd Frazier fouled out to Wilmer Flores at first base and J.B. Shuck grounded out to shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera. The crowd, which booed Harvey off the mound in his prior start here, the 9-1 loss to Washington on May 19, responded with “Har-vey! Har-vey!” chants.
“When we got out of that inning in the seventh, he was genuinely fired up,” Collins said. “That’s great to see.”
Throw in shutout innings by Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia (bouncing back from two straight lousy outings), and you have yourselves a good day at the office. It got even better after the game, when Harvey took responsibility for blowing off the media following his previous start, the 7-4 loss to the Nationals last Tuesday.
Harvey traveled a long distance in five days, from Washington to Flushing, at a time when many (very much including the galoot writing this column) thought the Mets should give Harvey a break, out of the rotation. While Collins credited Harvey for reporting to work with a tougher game face, Harvey credited his improved mechanics for the heightened confidence.
“A lot of it had to do with timing, staying over the rubber a little bit longer,” Harvey said. “That would free up my arm to get my mechanics.”
The Mets, like Harvey, are a talented entity experiencing turbulence; David Wright looks like a strong candidate to join the disabled list Tuesday with a herniated disk in his neck. The foundation can’t crumble under the pressure.
The foundation solidifies considerably with a steady Harvey. Now the Mets know that’s a realistic possibility. A reachable goal in this season when anything short of the ultimate goal would disappoint many.
