Mets right-hander Matt Harvey built off his strong performance from Thursday, limiting the Cardinals to just one run over 5.1 innings on Tuesday afternoon.
“He is where he needs to be,” manager Mickey Callaway said. “He is throwing the ball over the plate, a great athletic delivery and he knows his stuff is good.”
Harvey sprinkled five hits and punched out five Red Birds before handing the ball off to Paul Sewald. Harvey threw 90 pitches total and his last pitch topped out at 94 mph.
“Being able to get up to 90 pitches like I did today and still feel good, that’s what’s key,” Harvey said. “I was able to get some good speed on the slider again.”
Callaway has been impressed by Harvey’s secondary stuff after working with him over the last month.
“I didn’t know a ton about his offpseed pitches before I came here,” Callaway said. “And those are showing above average for me right now, especially when he is throwing his fastball where he wants to.”
In his last start Thursday against the Marlins, the right-hander struck out eight hitters, including the last five he faced, while allowing three tallies on six hits and one walk over five innings.
Over five starts this spring, Harvey has logged 20.0 innings and a 4.50 ERA with a 1-2 record.
Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom will start Games No. 1 and No. 2 of the regular season. Beyond that it is a question mark, but Harvey believes that his start today is a good indicator he won’t throw in the first series of the year, which is also against the St. Louis Cardinals.
“Wherever they want me to throw, I am ready to go, as we all are, and we are looking forward to a successful season,” Harvey said.
Harvey is slated to make one more start this coming Sunday, against the Miami Marlins when the Mets will play the final Grapefruit League game of the spring.
Going into the season, Harvey is excited that the “Fab Five” will get a chance to pitch in the rotation together for the first time.
Jason Vargas, who underwent surgery Tuesday on the broken hamate bone in his glove hand, may still return for Opening Day, but Harvey is not concerned.
“The main goal is to win games and it doesn’t matter what five we have,” Harvey said. “I think we are all amped up and ready to go, and the biggest thing is all five of us are finally healthy at the same time and whatever they decide to do and whoever they decide to throw out there, we are all healthy and ready to go. We are all pulling for each other and it’s going to be a fun year.”
It has been awesome to see Harvey throw like he has the last two games and I hope he can take that momentum and bring it into the regular season.
While it is important for Harvey to take small steps, I also believe he has unfinished business to take care of and will have a strong walk year.
Even if he is never the pitcher he once was, if he can be a solid No. 3 or No. 4 guy for the Mets, that could be a huge boost and improvement from last year where the team really didn’t have a pitcher like that.
It will be exciting to see how Harvey’s year plays out, but these last two games have got me excited for Harvey again.
