This will not be easily forgotten.

The New York Mets have trudged along, disappointing their fanbase for the last eight seasons, but 2015 changed that. They signed players, made trades and developed a promising young core—position guys and pitchers alike.

And five months into this season, this had paid dividends in a big and exciting way. The starting rotation is at the center of it all. It is young, hard-throwing and has shown how completely dominant it can be when it is on, giving the Mets a legitimate chance to win the National League pennant now that an NL East title seems inevitable.

These are the Mets, though. There is always a wrench, and it was just chucked at them by their most marketable and beloved—until now—player, Matt Harvey, who is pitching exceptionally well in his first season back from Tommy John surgery.

Almost inexplicably, the 26-year-old ace appears to be sticking by his super-agent, Scott Boras, and imposing a hard innings limit on himself, 180 innings to be exact and of which he has already fulfilled 166.

Even with the postseason looming next month, Harvey’s first ever and the Mets’ first since 2006, the limit is supposedly nonnegotiable and new news to the team, first brought to their attention late last month by Boras in an email to general manager Sandy Alderson. Newsday’s David Lemmon shared Alderson’s thoughts regarding the situation:

Presumably not wanting to go against his agent, Harvey is purposely murky and wishy-washy in his answers to inquiries about whether he will pitch in the playoffs. His ominous words lead everyone to believe he will not, but that he just doesn’t want to be the bad guy and come right out and say it. Harvey told reporters Saturday:

I’m the type of person, I never want to put the ball down. Obviously, I hired Scott as my agent and went to Dr. [James] Andrews as my surgeon because I trusted them to keep my career going and keep me healthy.

As far as being out there, being with my teammates and playing, I’m never going to want to stop, but as far as the surgeon and my agent having my back and kind of looking out for the best of my career, they’re obviously speaking their minds about it.

Harvey, however, did not. And the questions about how much more he will pitch this year linger.

This will not be easily forgotten. Not by a long-suffering fanbase and not by his teammates, because this could cost all of them a legitimate shot at a World Series.

Plus, there was this last week from manager Terry Collins, seemingly boasting about the tenacity of his pitcher as the innings mounted and the playoffs approached:

This is the time of year we’ve talked about, that he’s talked about. One of the things we had discoursed all summer long when all the innings things started to rear its ugly head, Matt said, ‘I’m pitching in the playoffs. If we get to the playoffs, I want to be able to pitch.’ In all the discussions we’ve had, he’s said, ‘Listen, I’ll do it but I’m pitching in October.’

Now, it appears Harvey is backtracking on those statements, appeasing his top-flight agent and pissing off anyone loyal to the Mets. And they should be mad, because as we all saw with Stephen Strasburg’s 2012 shutdown by the Washington Nationals, these kinds of real opportunities to win cannot be taken for granted.

What Harvey means to the Mets is measurable in the stats and the radar gun. It is immeasurable in terms of him being a valve that helps pump competitive blood through the team. He’s got the 2.60 ERA and the fastball that can knock on 99 mph’s door. But if he is indeed deciding to pack it in, the blood flow slows down significantly.

The team still has co-ace Jacob deGrom and stud rookie Noah Syndergaard and another promising rookie in Steven Matz. Teams envy that trio, but the foursome that includes Harvey is elite, much more intimidating and the reason the Mets had been seen as a threat in the playoffs.

Without Harvey, it seems the Los Angeles Dodgers, the team almost certain to face the Mets in the NL Division Series, have a clear and obvious advantage. If they go on to knock out the Mets, and Harvey does not pitch, the offense is unforgivable only because talk of a hard 180-inning limit did not surface until it was virtually too late for the club to do anything about it.

It can’t manage it because his current total is already too close to the ceiling. It can’t replace him because all the trade windows have closed. It can’t improve its postseason chances because Harvey is just too critical a part of its success.

So now everyone involved keeps waiting. They wait to see if this game-changing problem can be rectified. They wait to see if Harvey actually commits one way or another. They wait to see how damaging his shutdown could be to their October fate.

All the while, everyone knows—New York will not easily forget this.

 

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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