Matt Harvey waited 598 days to return to the Citi Field mound, but he didn’t expect his homecoming to turn out the way it did.
“That might have been the weirdest game I’ve been a part of, maybe ever,” Harvey explained to reporters following the game.
It was indeed weird.
Harvey retired the first two batters he faced in the first inning in typical fashion – he fanned Odubel Herrera and Freddy Galvis for the first two outs. But, then Chase Utley came up, and he drilled a fastball up in the zone to the right field corner for his tenth career home run at Citi Field.
“I think obviously I came out pretty strong, and I think as the game went on, pitches were kind of creeping over the middle,” Harvey said of his performance on Tuesday night.
That seemed to get Harvey out of his game somewhat. While he has a dominant fastball, he seemed to throw too many in this game and, as he said, he was centering a lot of them over the middle of the plate. As a result, he only ended up with ten swings-and-misses on his fastball, which wouldn’t be too unusual if not for the Phillies swinging and missing on three of the first seven pitches Harvey threw.
“It just happened that couple of pitches I left over the middle they were able to execute,” Harvey said.
For the most part, he got away with a lot of the mistakes he made, mostly because his stuff is so dominant and dynamic that even his B or C stuff is incredibly difficult for the opposition to hit. He was able to keep the Phillies guessing thanks to his new curveball – he threw 11 of the 16 curves for strikes on Tuesday night. That allowed him to manage through six innings and limit the Phillies to only three runs, two off of solo homers.
The amazing part about the night was despite not being at his best, Harvey was still efficient thanks to not allowing a walk. His ability to throw strikes – even if they weren’t the best quality all night long – kept him ahead in the count, kept him out of big jams with key strikeouts, and still kept him under 100 pitches through six innings.
In the end, he threw 95 pitches threw six innings, 64 for strikes. He allowed three earned runs on five hits and two hit batsman – he hit Galvis in the third inning and Utley square in the back in the fifth.
“I think I got a little overamped, and that one got away,” Harvey said of hitting Utley.
Considering what happened to the Mets in this game – David Buchanan hit both Wilmer Flores and Michael Cuddyer in the hand with pitches early in the game – it remains unclear if that pitch to Utley actually got away from Harvey. Even so, it was nice to see Harvey take a stand and send a message on behalf of his team. It’s something the Mets really haven’t done too much of in recent years.
All-in-all, Harvey realizes he’s going through a process of getting back to where he was before he injured his elbow 598 days ago.
“You have to get used to being out there more and more, and having a lot of adrenaline running, I kind of got fastball-happy,” Harvey explained. “But those are parts of playing through a season and coming back from an injury where you’re gone for so long. It’s not like I’m not going to ever give up a run.”
He’s held to a very high standard. Part of that is his own doing since he was so amazing for a year before he got injured, but part of that is due to the dependence the franchise has on him as they head into this chapter of their history.
He’s amazing, but not perfect, as much as we want him to be. Still, his imperfections are still better than most at the top of their games.
You can watch highlights from Harvey’s return home here:
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