Matt Harvey and no earned runs after five innings

Late in the 2015 season, after the innings kerfuffle, the Mets lifted Matt Harvey after he had pitched five scoreless innings. The bullpen imploded and the Mets lost the game against the Yankees. The next day, FanGraphs had a piece where they compared Harvey going through the lineup a third time versus a rested reliever and essentially said there was no reason to prefer Harvey in that situation. I went through and compared Harvey when he hadn’t given up a run after five and the numbers painted a much different story, as Harvey was likely to continue to pitch well after hurling five innings without an earned run.

But the sample sizes were not very big. So, it was left off to look for a larger sample in the offseason. And today’s the day. Before we show numbers, there are a few things to state. One, there’s nothing magical about five innings. That was the original point where Harvey was lifted and the hope is that it correlates with the third time through the batting order. Second, this is talking about earned runs. Finally, there are no distinctions made to ease of outing. A pitcher could give up a leadoff homer in the first inning and then cruise. Or he could pitch in and out of trouble constantly and have high stress innings early, even though no runs scored.

With that out of the way, here are the day by day numbers for Harvey, starting in 2015:

Date	ER Thru 5 IP	IP After 5	ER After 5
4/9	0	1	0
4/14	3	1	0
4/19	1	1	3
4/25	1	3.2	2
5/1	0	2	0
5/8	3	1	0
5/13	0	2	0
5/18	0	3	0
5/23	7	–	–
5/29	4	3	0
6/4	1	2	1
6/10	2	1	5
6/16	0	2	0
6/21	0	1.2	1
6/27	0	1	0
7/4	3	–	–
7/11	2	2	0
7/20	2	2	0
7/25	1	2	1
7/31	0	2.2	1
8/5	0	2	0
8/11	0	3	0
8/16	1	1	0
8/28	0	1	0
9/2	3	1.1	1
9/8	3	0.1	4
9/20	0	–	–
9/26	2	1.2	0
10/3	0	1	0

This past season, Harvey had 13 games where he did not allow an earned run after five innings. In those 13 games, he proceeded to throw 22.1 innings and allowed just 2 ER, for an incredible 0.81 ERA. On the flip side, he gave up an earned run by the fifth inning in 16 starts. After the fifth inning in those games, he allowed 17 ER in 23 IP for a 6.65 ERA.

Now let’s see about earlier in Harvey’s career. Here’s the same table but for 2013:

Date	ER Thru 5 IP	IP After 5	ER After 5
4/3	0	2	0
4/8	1	2	0
4/13	0	3	1
4/19	0	2	1
4/24	1	1	2
4/29	1	0.1	0
5/7	0	4	0
5/12	2	2	0
5/17	2	2.1	0
5/22	2	1.1	2
5/28	0	3	1
6/2	4	–	–
6/8	1	2	0
6/13	1	2	0
6/18	0	2	3
6/23	0	1	0
6/28	1	2	0
7/3	0	1	5
7/8	2	2	1
7/21	0	2	0
7/26	0	3	0
8/1	0	0.2	3
8/7	0	4	0
8/13	2	1	2
8/18	2	1	0
8/24	2	1.2	0

In 2013, Harvey had 12 starts where he did not allow an earned run through five innings. In those games after the fifth, he allowed 14 ER in 27.2 IP for a 4.55 ERA. He also had 14 games where he allowed at least one earned run through five innings. In those contests, he went on to hurl 20.2 IP and allowed 7 ER, for a 3.05 ERA. These results don’t match up at all with what he did in 2015.

Now, let’s look at the numbers from his debut in 2012:

Date	ER Thru 5 IP	IP After 5	ER After 5
7/26	0	0.1	0
7/31	1	1	1
8/5	5	–	–
8/10	2	1	0
8/16	0	2.2	1
8/22	1	1	0
8/29	2	1.1	0
9/4	3	–	–
9/12	1	–	–
9/19	1	2	0

Only twice in this season did Harvey start off without an earned run through five innings. He proceeded to throw 3 IP and allow 1 ER in those games, for a 3.00 ERA. In his other eight games, Harvey threw 6.1 IP, allowed 1 ER and posted a 1.42 ERA.

So, in his MLB career, Harvey has 27 games where he did not allow an earned run through five innings. In those games he went on to throw 53 IP and allowed 17 ER, for a 2.89 ERA. In his other 38 games, after the fifth inning, Harvey had 50 IP and 25 ER for a 4.50 ERA.

Perhaps with another year or two of data, we can begin to make some judgments about Harvey in this regard. But if forced to say now, the early numbers seem to indicate that pulling him after five innings when he hasn’t allowed an earned run would be a mistake.

Let’s do the same thing with Jacob deGrom. But since this piece is already chart-heavy, let’s just put up his final numbers.

In 2014, deGrom had 10 games where he did not allow an earned run through five innings. In those games, he went on to allow 9 ER in 19.2 IP for a 4.12 ERA. In his other 12 games that year, deGrom went on to allow 2 ER in 11.1 IP for a 1.59 ERA. This past year, deGrom had 15 games without an earned run through five innings. In those contests, he went on to give up 8 ER in 30 IP for a 2.40 ERA. In his other 15 games last year, deGrom proceeded to allow 6 ER in 15 IP for a 3.60 ERA.

For his brief career, deGrom has allowed 17 ER in 49.2 IP in 25 games from the sixth inning on where he did not allow an unearned run through five innings. In his other 27 games, he allowed 8 ER in 26.1 IP for a 2.73 ERA.

Ideally, we’d have a stunning conclusion but here we simply do not. Perhaps with a greater sample, we can say something definitive. One thing to note is that both Harvey and deGrom showed improvement in games where they did not allow an earned run through five innings. Harvey went from a 4.55 ERA in 2013 to a 0.81 last year. Meanwhile, deGrom went from a 4.12 to a 2.40 ERA in the same situations in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

This could be nothing but randomness. It could be the pitchers learned to handle themselves better in these situations. And it could also be that the manager did a better job knowing when to pull the hurler. Whatever the reason(s), it will be interesting to see how these two do in these splits going forward.