NEW YORK — The tone in the afternoon was serious as the New York Mets discussed what they’re going to do with a pitcher who was once their biggest asset but is now their biggest concern.
The tone Friday night was much lighter thanks to another Mets pitcher who is quickly becoming a valuable asset.
Matt Harvey is still a problem, and he will be until he comes out of a funk that is threatening the Mets’ season. But Steven Matz can make the Mets feel good, at least for a night and maybe even longer.
“Everybody that’s ever had him has said this kid’s got a chance to be as good as anybody, because of his stuff and his command and his confidence,” Mets manager Terry Collins said. “If his health stays good, he’s going to win a lot of games.”
Matz has won six of them already, more than anybody else in the Mets rotation, even though he has the least amount of experience and just missed a start because of what turned out to be minor concerns about his elbow and forearm. He proved Friday night he’s healthy, at least for now, and he proved again that when he’s healthy, the Mets can rely on him.
He had the good fortune to face an easily overwhelmed Milwaukee Brewers lineup, but given the Brewers just won a series from the unbeatable Chicago Cubs, maybe Matz just made them look bad. He certainly made it look easy—something Harvey hasn’t been able to do in any of his nine 2016 starts.
“The stuff just looks flat, all his pitches,” said one American League scout who watched Harvey’s disastrous outing Thursday against the Washington Nationals.
The scout said he would have pulled Harvey from the Mets rotation, an opinion apparently shared by some of the Mets’ decision-makers who met Friday afternoon to discuss and debate the Harvey question. Eventually, they gave in to Harvey’s desire to make his start next week in Washington and try to fight through this funk.
It seemed like the right decision Friday, but it might look bad on Monday, Tuesday or whenever the Mets send Harvey to the mound again. The problem is, since the Mets believe this is a confidence issue rather than a physical or mechanical issue, it’s not clear how Harvey can fix it without pitching in major league games.
“The issue isn’t when no one’s in the batter’s box,” Collins said. “It’s when someone’s in the batter’s box in a different color uniform.”
There was a time when Harvey made this game look as easy as Matz made it look Friday night, although he usually did it with more flair. Matz gets on and off the mound so quickly that sometimes you wonder how he had enough time to get three outs.
“You can’t ask for anything more,” Mets second baseman Neil Walker said after a game in which Matz never even went to a three-ball count while allowing just three hits in seven innings.
The Mets are proving to be an inconsistent offensive team (very good in April, but very bad so far in May), so they ask for a lot from their starting pitchers. So far this season, Noah Syndergaard and Matz have delivered, Jacob deGrom has battled, Bartolo Colon has done what he usually does and Harvey has been a mess.
That’s serious stuff for him, and it’s serious stuff for a Mets team that still depends on him. But after Matz pitched the way he did, Collins mentioned that both Matz and Syndergaard have had cortisone shots this month.
“Matter of fact, we’re thinking of giving Harv a shot tomorrow, just for the heck of it,” Collins joked. “It seems to be working.”
Truth be told, the Mets still don’t know what will work with Harvey. They thought he’d figured some things out, and they fully expected his best start of the season Thursday.
Instead, they got the worst start of his career, the first time he’d given up more than seven runs (he gave up nine, six of them earned) or lasted fewer than four innings (he went 2.2). He sounded as confused as ever afterward, but he recovered enough overnight to sound convincing when he told Mets officials he wanted a chance to fight through this.
Matz, meanwhile, sounded matter of fact—even on the health question.
“As far as the injury stuff, I got an MRI, got an X-ray, got a CT scan,” he said. “And everything checked out clear.”
Yes, it’s all clear for Matz and all clear for the Mets on the days he pitches. That won’t happen again until Wednesday.
By then, they’ll have gone through another Harvey Day, which was once a cause for great celebration but is now a cause for great concern. The Mets can only hope for a time when Harvey makes them feel as comfortable as Matz did Friday.
Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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