With the Mets offense having sputtered in recent weeks and a challenging four-game series against the Cardinals ahead of them this week, the Mets needed an ace-like performance from their ace to open the showdown up.
And an ace-like performance they got.
Matt Harvey took the ball on Monday and shutout the Cardinals for eight innings, allowing eight hits and a walk with nine strikeouts. But despite not allowing a run, Harvey took a no-decision thanks to a blown save from Jeurys Familia in the ninth inning on some crafty hitting by the Cardinals to tie the game at 1-1.
But Harvey, being the good teammate he is, didn’t care about the no-decision on his ledger. Rather, he was more concerned about the team finding a way to win.
“You’ve got to take the win-loss thing out of the book and concentrate on cheering your teammates on so we can score and get out of here a little earlier,” Harvey explained after the game. “I was pretty happy with the performance and obviously coming out with the win was huge for us.”
Still, Harvey deserved the win. He has deserved many wins in which he has pitched the way he did on Monday night. He’s made nine starts in his career allowing one run in seven innings or more while coming up empty. It’s the most of any pitcher in history through their first 44 career games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
He has now allowed one run or less in 23 of his first 44 career starts. He also has a 16 inning scoreless streak.
“We’ve had some pretty good pitching performances where we didn’t win the game,” Terry Collins said after the late-night win. “We’ve got to start winning these kind of games.”
Even so, Harvey was utterly brilliant once again on Monday. He struggled with his command early, allowed some baserunners and hard hit balls, but got a huge double play started by Wilmer Flores in the fourth inning, diving to his right to snare a line drive and then turned to double off Jhonny Peralta to bail him out of a first and second, one out jam.
That seemed to be what Harvey needed to get on-track. From there, St. Louis had very little chance against him.
In his last couple of starts, Harvey has reincorporated his slider into his repertoire. It was a devastating pitch for him in 2013 before he hurt his elbow, and it had been mostly absent until recently, and while he didn’t get many swings and misses with it, they only put three of the 25 he threw in play, two of which went for singles.
The key though is he manages to stay ahead in the count no matter how good his stuff is. Even when he was struggling, he still threw strikes with all of his pitches, and his stuff is so good the opposition just didn’t do much against him at that point in the game.
And, once he found his groove, it was lights out for St. Louis.
“With all my pitches I definitely did [have good stuff],” Harvey said. “I finally threw the changeup for a strike when I needed to and was able to throw the slider early. I used everything.”
In professional sports, talent is one thing. To put that talent together with what Harvey brings to the table as a baseball player is as unique of a commodity as there is. And because of that, he has once again shown he is one of the best pitchers in baseball, and last night was his most impressive outing so far this season. He was forced to fight himself, he had to finagle a very challenging lineup who gave him a run for his money, and he showed he is a thinker and an awesome chess player combined with guile and determination.
Now, if the Mets could just win one of these games for their ace, that would make it all extra sweet.
Harvey is 5-1 with a 1.98 ERA in 54 2/3 innings this season. He has allowed 12 earned runs and only eight walks with 56 strikeouts. His 1.32 walks-per-nine innings are eighth best in baseball, and he owns a 7:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio so far this year.
Just Mets 