Matt Harvey had an excuse for Sunday’s mediocre performance by his standards. He was sick for a couple of days. It affected his sleeping and his ability to comfortably swallow. (Adam Rubin, ESPN)
The illness intensified on Sunday so he texted a Mets trainer at 7:30 AM. But despite that, he still decided to make his scheduled start.
Harvey battled through six innings, giving up four runs, one short of his the most runs he ever allowed in a start. He still had seven strikeouts and won again to improve to 3-0 thanks to the Mets scoring seven runs in the 4th inning which was just enough for the 7-6 Mets victory over the Marlins on Sunday afternoon. Harvey took antibiotics before the game.
“I can’t swallow anything. I just felt weak, run down,” Harvey said after the win. “It’s been going around the clubhouse. Whatever it was, it was a struggle. The next time I need to do a better job.”
Manager Terry Collins had some thoughts about getting Harvey to skip his start cause of his physical condition.
“At about 7:30 today when he called in sick, there was a chance he wasn’t going to start,” Collins said. “And when he got here, he said, ‘Listen, I don’t feel very good, but I’m going to pitch. And I’ll go as far as I can.”
Collins was also asked what was the contingency plan for a starting pitcher especially with Rafael Montero sent to the minors. “It didn’t happen so I don’t have an answer for you.” said Collins.
After the game, Harvey met with reporters,
“The last thing I want to do is give up a start. It was a battle. I feel like they did a great job trying to prepare me as best as possible for the outing, and I kind of had to battle through it.”
“I think the offense did all the talking. Going out there with that much run support, for me it was wanting to battle through it and stay out there, keep throwing strikes and get us back into the dugout as quickly as possible. I think the seventh inning I kind of ran out of gas and just didn’t do a very good job.”
So for those of us who were sort of wondering why Harvey wasn’t his usual overly sharp self this afternoon, you can chalk this up to his weakened physical condition. The Mets hope Harvey will be fully healed by his next start against the Yankees in the Subway Series this weekend.
