Yeah, yeah, yeah; another story about how amazing Matt Harvey is.
Harvey is the best pitcher the Mets and their fans have seen on the hill in quite some time and things just keep getting better.
The right-hander retired 27 of 28 hitters across nine shutout innings in his last start and looked pretty awesome doing it with a bloody nose.
Harvey has not lost a single start this season and has allowed a total of seven earned runs across seven starts for a ridiculously low ERA of 1.28 and WHIP of 0.69.
The fire-baller is making hitters swing and miss (58 K in 49.1 IP) while proving that he can also be a workhorse (he’s gone seven innings or more in all but two of his starts).
The 24-year old hasn’t had very many shaky moments this season. The Dodgers and Marlins have done the most damage to him and they still only scored a combined four runs and amassed a total of 11 combined hits in their two games.
Can Harvey really do no wrong this season?
Well, the short answer is no. There is going to be a time where he is really tested, he struggles – with command, injury, or some other kind of thing that ball players all deal with – or he gets lit up by someone.
Could a bout of non success turn the tide on him and send him into a losing streak?
It’s possible, but so is anything. No one is completely perfect in this game – no matter how close you actually come. There are ebbs and flows. Everyone who watches the game of baseball knows that.
But, when is it going to happen for Harvey?
His sheer dominance on the mound is reminiscent in a way of R.A. Dickey’s run to the NL Cy Young Award last season. No one can seem to figure Harvey out and just when you think that someone has, he zeroes in and rips apart an opponent’s line-up, so pinpointing an exact moment is difficult. His dominance shouldn’t last too much longer as teams face him for the second time, but you never really know when something like this will end.
However, could this just be a case of hitters not being able to adjust to Harvey? Is it still considered early enough in the season for hitters to be rusty?
Harvey isn’t a surprise anymore. Coaches and hitters around the NL must all be studying footage of the pitcher, not only figuring out a way to hit him, but to also see what they may be able to bring back to their own pitching staff, so there really isn’t room for excuses anymore.
Harvey is legit and teams have to figure out a way to stop him. His legitimacy has spawned comparisons to a young Roger Clemens and Doc Gooden by MLB.com analyst Mitch Williams and Bleacher Report writer Joe Giglio and if Harvey continues to keep eating up line-ups the way he is then the comparisons are worthy ones to make.
Although it is exciting to see Harvey dismantle line-ups with his power stuff, it’s actually more exciting to think about the moment where he will first succeed in the face of scrutiny; when things aren’t going right and he has to work his out of base loaded jam or keep his club in a ball game while they fight to score runs for him.
These will be the moments that define him as a pitcher, because you can only be as dominate as he is for so long.
Even Clemens and Gooden had rough moments and Harvey will too.
Is Harvey unstoppable?
At the moment, yes; but for the entire season, it’s doubtful.
I think Harvey will have the biggest crisis of production when d’Arnaud comes up and starts regularly sitting behind the dish. Aside from RBI and HR heroics, Buck has been a big rudder in the water with this young staff. Its obvious he calls a great game and the staff trusts him implicitly. Wanna bounce a slider with confidence…go ahead. High cheese? He’ll get it. Frame the corners and expand the zone…yep. When that changes, and Im surprisingly sadly certain it will, I think Harvey will take less advice from behind the plate, and rightly so. That has the potential to miss pitch sequences, allow passed balls, etc. etc. Harvey is great. He might be able to toss a perfect game to a pitch-back for all I can tell. But when Buck is not there, I think the opportunity for leaner times could arrive.
Just throwing it out there, but the guy behind the dish for the Mets’ first no hitter was…Josh Thole. A fine young man, certainly, but not an above average catcher/ball player in any aspect, really. I think there will be a learning curve but Buck passing the baton onto D’Arnaud shouldn’t dramatically impact the pitching staff, especially if we keep Buck on to train the young Padawan.
Santana a consummate veteran. Our staff: young.
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We better hope so. Otherwise losing 100 games is very possible.
I fortunately was out all day yesterday and missed the game except for updates on my phone. The summaries from the various news agencies and blogs made it pretty clear this was the second turd in a row. The offense remains offensive. Outside of Harvey, there seem to be no pitchers. Niese has fallen so far that the original love of the idea of a Harvey (R), Niese (L), Wheeler (R) combo was too much to not dream about. In reality Niese seems to be falling into a 3 or 4 guy. A lot of this is apparent at face value and sad as it may be, I’m troubled most by the situation with Valdespin and the current state of leadership of the team.
Regardless of his cult hero status based on some very timely big hits, he clearly refuses to learn how to be a pro ball player. He has been dressed down repeatedly. He has been talked to. He has been lectured to. And none of it sticks. So when he Cadillac’s to first while admiring his work on a late inning meaningless HR then gets plunked the next day it should be no surprise. Yet his inner teenager couldn’t resist pouting about it. And no Mets team mate could be surprised or care less. I don’t either. I believe he is becoming a very sore piece of the clubhouse and this could be extending morale problems through the house. I think it may be time to shop Valdespin around. Ike’s statement today that he’s going back to free swinging, regardless of the “plan”. TCs lineup experiments are a complete failure. An article I read elsewhere makes a case that the team is leaderless and shattered. That seems like it’s not far from true. I thought we had a captain?
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