During last night’s 9-1 drubbing of a loss to the Washington Nationals, Matt Harvey allowed a career-high nine runs while pitching a career-low 2 2/3 innings. He allowed eight hits, and struck out just two batters. His record dropped to 3-6, and his ERA soared to 5.77.
Manager, Terry Collins did not seem reluctant to say that it may be time to think of other plans for his former ace who has struggled all of this season thus far. Harvey may be taken out of the rotation as he attempts to right whatever may be wrong.
“We’re going to take a look — is that best for him, is that best for us?” Collins said. “We’re not going to commit to anything at this time. But I will tell you, as I sit here today, I’d certainly trust him. I certainly believe in him. I hadn’t seen him struggle like this before. But that guy that pitched tonight for them (Stephen Strasburg), he had a couple of mediocre years and now he’s resurged.” (ESPN)
If staying in the rotation, his next start would be against these same Washington Nationals in their home park on Tuesday night. The dejected Harvey continued to say the right things after last night’s game.
“It’s my job to go out there and keep working and try to figure this thing out. That’s all I’m going to do is start over tomorrow and keep working hard and do everything I can to fix this.”
He has been quoted saying just about that same thing now after each start since mid-April it seems. The question continues to come down to if this is truly a cause of how much work he put in post Tommy John surgery. Harvey pitched 216 innings in 2015, the most ever by a pitcher in their rebound year from the surgery.
“As I tried to explain to Matt again, there’s some people that don’t believe it — this kid went above and beyond last year,” Collins said. “And I’m not sure he’s recuperated from it. I’m going to stand by it. It’s not an excuse. We don’t make excuses here.
“I think it might be a reason. I think there’s a difference between a reason and an excuse. That’s where I stand on it. I’ve told Matt, I still trust him. I still believe in him. I’ve seen him do it. But we’ll take a hard look at what the next move is going to be.”
Harvey has only known success. He has yet to be through a time in his career in which he must discover himself again and fight through whatever it is that may be plaguing him. It is unknown if his issues are mental or physical, but something is certainly wrong with a man who was considered to be one of the most dominant pitchers in the game. The former bully on the mound seems to now lack confidence and is no longer sure of the pitcher he once was not long ago.
“There are two types of people in this game — ones who have been humbled and ones who will be,” Collins said. “And if you’ve never been humbled, you don’t know how to get through it. I had, in the past, when I was in Anaheim, two outstanding offensive players who got to the major leagues very, very fast. And at one time they weren’t hitting, and they didn’t know how to fix it because they had never been through a slump before. And at this level, that’s a scary thing to have happen — when you don’t know how to fix something because you’ve never had to.”
Where they go from here with Matt Harvey is anyone’s guess at this point. Some time away to get back to basics could be the best thing for a pitcher who is just not himself right now.
