Bumps in the road are inevitable even for good teams.
That’s where Matt Harvey comes in for the Mets.
The first month’s worth of #HarveyDays were fun. For the most part, they came with all the hype, glamour, and spectacle they were billed to be and what people had been waiting for for nearly 18 months.
But now the first true baseball test for Harvey is here in 2015. For the first time since returning, Harvey has a most serious task at hand: to stop a losing skid and restore order to the Mets.
It’s a role Harvey has said he relishes.
“I kind of took over and took charge at North Carolina when I was a junior and had the whole staff on my shoulders there,” Harvey told the New York Post in March. “So now it comes pretty natural. It’s something I enjoy. I’m ready to do the same thing here.”
Harvey has to do just that tonight against the Nationals. And, he knows it.
“It’s a big series for us, obviously we struggled on the road a bit,” Harvey told Kristie Ackert of the Daily News on Thursday. “Coming back here and playing such a good team, we’re all ready for it.”
The Mets are losers of five of their last seven games and three straight after a glorious 11-game winning streak to stretch their record to 13-3. Such winning streaks are not the measure of a good team, however. It’s how they manage the hangover effect from such a wave of success and build upon it from that point forward.
The Mets have seriously struggled with that hangover, and what has been on display is quite worrisome.
So for Harvey and the Mets tonight, it’s not about a battle for intra-city supremacy, what colors the Empire State Building will appear in, how hard anyone is throwing, or anything like that.
It’s about pulling out all of the stops, and doing what supreme aces are supposed to do, and that is to stop the bleeding and turn the ship around.
Harvey says he’s ready for this challenge.
“This week I feel the best I have all year,” Harvey said.
So, for the pitcher who calls himself Batman, the Mets need their superhero to stop that evil villain known as losing.
Right now.
Just Mets 