Matt Harvey has gone through all of the trials and tribulations one expects to go through in a pitcher’s journey back from Tommy John Surgery in 2015.
He has found smooth sailing at times, looking like the Harvey everyone remembered him to be prior to the star pitcher tearing a ligament in his elbow. Then there are others when it’s looked like he’s running on a hamster wheel.
Manager Terry Collins believes pitching on regular rest helped Harvey on Saturday night.
“I’m sure he’ll tell you, ‘a five-man rotation.’ I think that had something to do with it,” the manager explained. “The regular routine probably helped him.”
It can be argued some of his struggles have been attributed to the lack of a consistent routine. He’s worked on five or more days of rest 12 times out of his 19 starts in 2015, but he has a 3.01 ERA in those 12 starts, more than a half a run lower than that on regular rest coming into Saturday’s game.
So as much as he’s disliked pitching on regular rest, it’s hard to say he’s been better with a more traditional routine in his first year back from Tommy John.
In the end, he’s a human being, as much as the fans (and maybe Harvey) would like to think otherwise. He has to deal with the same comfort, strength and stamina issues everyone else has to who experiences the notorious UCL procedure.
But on Saturday night, Harvey – who was pitching on regular rest – had that wind pushing his sail, as he allowed merely two solo home runs and four other hits with a walk and four strikeouts over seven innings to earn his ninth win of the year and lower his ERA to 3.16 for the season.
But it was more than just one of the better starts after surgery for Harvey. He had an outstanding slider working on Saturday night, one that resembled the slider he was throwing in 2013 before he blew out his elbow. He recognized that pitch might have been the best it’s been since then as well.
“Today was real exciting for me because I finally felt I had that,” Harvey said of his slider. “It’s always been a very important pitch for me. I think today is a big step forward and I’m definitely happy with that.”
Harvey attributed some of his command issues in his last three starts to a mechanical flaw with his leg kick.
“My leg kick was getting too high, and I was kind of getting around the ball,” Harvey explained. “That caused a lot of issues, bad timing, a lot of inconsistent timing. We just wanted to make it simple and go back to what I had been doing before the surgery. It definitely paid off.”
Harvey had always been labeled as someone who had fantastic and rhythmic mechanics, albeit very simple, free and easy. So, for someone who has had to consistently tinker with them this season just goes to show the recovery process is still ongoing.
Remember, he did not pitch from August, 2013 until March, 2015. He has to go through the muscle memory process again, he has to get all of those parts working in sync again and execute them consistently, on top of building his stamina and fighting himself through the bad starts everyone has to go through anyway.
It’s not easy. And for the first time in Harvey’s baseball life, he has spent two years realizing how difficult things can be.
But all things considered, he’s been great in 2015. And, if this is truly a bad season for Harvey, 2016 is going to be an awful lot of fun for him.
Just Mets 