If anyone would’ve guessed that Matt Harvey would start the year winless in his first three starts, and be in the bottom third of qualifying pitchers in ERA, well then maybe you should play the Power-Ball.
For everyone else, Harvey’s first three starts to the 2016 season have been filled with early promise, only to crumble in the middle innings. It’s interesting to note that during the first three innings, Harvey’s allowed only two runs, one earned, struck out six and walked two batters. His OPS against numbers during those first three innings is a minuscule .325.
Harvey turns from Batman into Harvey “Two Face” during innings four through six however. In the 8 1/3 innings Harvey’s pitched in innings four to six, he’s allowed ten earned runs, walked five and struck out only three. The impressive OPS against numbers he owns during the first three innings balloons to a whopping 1.083. Clearly Harvey is having early season issues going through the batting order a second and third time around.
And the numbers back this up. In the first plate appearance against Harvey, batters have a combined .317 OPS with five strikeouts and two walks. In the second plate appearance, the OPS against starts to creep up, to .551. The strikeout numbers also start shrinking in the second time around, only striking out three batters in the early start to the season. In the third plate appearance, hitters are teeing off, combining for OPS of 1.597, with four walks and one strikeout. Of the eleven runs Harvey’s surrendered thus far, six of them have come in the third plate appearance against.
Numbers aside, it’s evident that Harvey is struggling to find that dominant command and presence that has made him one of the most electrifying starters in baseball. Could the issue be mental? Possibly, especially considering that Harvey has dealt with issues and questions surrounding a cornucopia of topics, from innings limits, to Game 5 of the World Series, condensed off-season, to the blood clot at the end of Spring Training and the media having a field day over it.
I suspect a lot of it has to do with his mechanics though, especially out of the stretch. Pitching Coach Dan Warthen provided some interesting comments after the Mets lost on Saturday 7-5 to the Cleveland Indians.
“We worked on it the last bullpen,” Warthen said. “Still, you get into a pressure situation, you do fall back into bad habits. This has been Matt’s biggest bugaboo since I’ve had him — being able to stay up. He’s trying to be quick to home plate. We’re trying to give our catchers a chance [to throw out base stealers]. In doing so, he collapses the back side and ends up pushing a lot of baseballs, or spiking them.” (ESPN)
Warthen has noticed that Harvey’s had early season issues out of the stretch, suggesting that mechanical issues involving Harvey collapsing on his backside rather than staying upright, which results in Harvey almost forcing the baseball instead of delivering it fluidly. The Indians took advantage of Harvey’s struggles out of the stretch, going 5-8 against him from the fifth inning on in Saturday’s loss.
Basically Harvey might be tensing up some when he’s out of the stretch, which results in him rushing the baseball and not being able to locate as he would want, and also would explain the reduction in velocity, something that was evident during Saturday’s start.
In April of 2015, Harvey averaged 96.6 mph on the gun, Saturday he averaged 94 mph. While it’s only a drop off of two miles per hour, Harvey was also coming back from Tommy John surgery last year. It would’ve made more sense if he had a small drop off in velocity heading into last year than this one, now fully healed and off any innings limit.
Harvey has also seen a large uptick in the percentage of contact made when swinging at all pitches, in and out of the strike zone. When Harvey’s at his best, he normally hangs around in the low to mid 70 percent range, which he produced in 2012, ’13, and ’15. This year, Harvey is well above his career norms, sitting at 83.1 percent. This could indicate that he’s not fooling as many hitters as he had in the past, which is also pretty clear when you see his K/9 numbers. Before the season, the lowest K/9 rate Harvey registered was last season, which was 8.94, still good for 21st in all of baseball. He’s currently at 4.67, a career low even dating back to his minor league days.
Many will suggest that Harvey had an abbreviated spring, which is true and might be a potential reason why he’s had a rocky start to 2016. He had to deal with the blood clot situation near the end of camp, which resulted in Harvey feeling hurt and betrayed by the media for their over the top coverage on the matter. He only threw twelve innings in Spring Training, and the results weren’t pretty there either, surrendering ten earned runs and walking nine, coming close to matching his overall numbers to start 2016.
Dating back to the last regular season game of 2015, Harvey has now lost four in row, something he has never done before in his young career. Harvey would certainly take the results from that October 3rd game however, where he threw six innings of one run ball, with no walks and eleven strikeouts. Harvey hasn’t even matched his strikeout total from that one game last year, with only nine strikeouts in 2016.
Harvey knows that there’s plenty more starts for him to get things turned around. However, April has normally been a strong month for Harvey. In 2013 Harvey went 4-0 with a 1.56 ERA. Harvey also went 4-0 in his 2015 return, and only allowed three walks in those starts combined. He’s already more than doubled that this year, sitting with seven free passes so far.
Frustration has been setting in for the 27-year-old through his first three starts.
“Nobody’s more frustrated right now than I am — not just today, but the last couple of starts. I think there’s a lot of things that went wrong,” Harvey said. “There’s a lot more baseball to be played, which is good. Obviously I have to redraw things up tomorrow and get back after it. Like I said, nobody’s more disappointed than I am.”
I suspect Harvey will work out of the funk he is currently in before too long. The season’s too long, his stuff is too good, and we know that Harvey can pitch on the biggest of stages. Maybe going through the adversity will help Harvey in the long run. In his career, he’s always had the spotlight for mainly positive actions on the diamond. With his early season struggles, this will be an excellent test to see how Harvey works around it, and how fast he can correct the mechanical issues that seem to be plaguing him to start the year.
