Early on, it was the kind of game you watched with eyes wide open. By the time the postgame show rolled around, you didn’t mind that you were nodding off to the sounds of Gary Apple and Nelson Figueroa [1] telling you what went wrong. You already knew what went wrong. The Mets didn’t hit enough and Matt Harvey [2] was all too human.
We knew the Mets don’t hit enough. We didn’t think Matt Harvey was just another person, let alone just another ballplayer. What fun is that? Do regular ballplayers get invited onto The Daily Show [3] for a full segment of fawning? Do regular ballplayers motivate lovely young ladies to blow off their senior prom [4] because Harvey Day is the true social event of the spring? Do regular ballplayers encourage in-house marketers to construct a Matt Kave [5]?
Do regular ballplayers take the mound in the top of the first as Matt Harvey did on Friday night and strike out three Marlins on ten pitches?
That’s Matt Harvey. He’s not just another ballplayer. He’s not instinctively eligible for “The If Told You Blues,” the ones whose refrain exists to buck you up when you’re moping the Mets haven’t been ten games over .500 in a month; the Mets are no longer in first place; the Mets no longer have a mammoth lead over the Nationals; the Mets have to scuffle for a Wild Card like almost everybody else; the Mets are getting by extraordinarily well in light of all the Mets they are missing. (Have you noticed no Met ever comes off a disabled list? I think George Theodore [6] is still on the 60-day.)
“If I Told You” imagines you’re Rip Van Winkle emerging from a Hot Stove snooze just now finding out where the Mets are. But you haven’t been sleeping. You’ve been up and around and experienced an adrenaline shot of highs and you’ve developed an allergic reaction to the lows, which doctors would identify as simple regression to the mean, take two deGroms and call me in the morning. Not everybody responds so ideally.
And it’s totally tough to take a dose of “If I Told You” at the end of a Harvey Day in which not every inning he worked resembled the first…or the second…or the third. Through three, Matt Harvey was perfect. Through three, I think it’s fair to say we weren’t wondering if maybe Matt had the stuff and the demeanor (and the opponent) to throw a perfect game. I think it’s fair to say we were expecting it.
Expect nothing, Mets fans, not even Matt Harvey excelling while Matt Harvey excels. The fourth inning went totally awry. A bunt single to and steal by Dee Gordon [7], who was born to be a Miami Marlin, it turns out. A walk to Martin Prado [8]. A flyout of Giancarlo Stanton [9], because it’s Stanton you worry about so you’re lulled into thinking, “OK, no-hitter’s gone, but the real fun is watching a master like Harvey disentangle himself from what to other pitchers would be a jam, but for Harvey is a mere bag of shells — and he just got Stanton to fly out!”
Then Justin Bour [10] homers and it’s 3-0, Marlins, and your world is never again the same, at least not on Friday night. You’re pretty sure you hear that across Harvey’s career (which you forget hasn’t been that long) he’s given up only one three-run homer, to Cody Ross [11]. You remember Ross’s home run. You couldn’t believe it then. You can’t believe it now. Who wants to believe anything that evokes Cody Ross?
The Mets get a run back when Lucas Duda [12] blasts a solo job. The Marlins find another run, somehow. Curtis Granderson [13] cuts their enhanced lead with a solo shot. In the ninth, the Mets put on the trappings of a game-tying rally except for the game-tying part. They come up short and lose, 4-3 [14]. Harvey has no doubt tried his best but not pitched his best, despite striking out eleven and walking only one in eight innings. Subtract the fourth and he’s a winning pitcher. Subtract the last seventeen games of Septembers 2007 and 2008 and think of the pennants we might have flown.
If I told you that after ten starts, one of the Mets’ key pitchers would be 5-3 with an ERA just a bit over three — and you didn’t ask “which one?” — you would have been as happy as you’d have conceivably been with 27-22 and no further questions. But knowing it’s Matt Harvey…and knowing how Matt Harvey started 2015…and balancing who Matt Harvey is with what Matt Harvey went through to get back to 2015…
You know, if it’s Matt Harvey and not just a hypothetical Mets starter, 5-3 and an ERA of 3.11 doesn’t do it for you on any level, even if you rightfully dismiss won-lost records and figure the earned run average might be puffed up by one really bad start in Pittsburgh. That really bad start came before this one. Then there was this one, which left him with a record comparable to Dan Haren [15] (5-2, 3.03), who beat the Mets on Friday night. Nothing wrong with Dan Haren, nothing at all, but a) wasn’t Dan Haren threatening to retire over the winter? and b) nobody not named Max, Madison or Clayton is supposed to compare with Matt Harvey.
I stirred a few moments after drifting off during the postgame show. I saw Matt surrounded by reporters [16]. He was trying to articulate what went wrong. He wasn’t much more encouraging than he was enlightening with an enraptured Jon Stewart the night before. It was a bad pitch to Bour, but otherwise, “The big thing was trying to keep the pitch count down and go as long as we could. I was happy that I got to eight innings and kind of kept the game somewhat within reach.”
That sentiment is not unreasonable. But it was unHarveylike. It’s what other pitchers say. The whole idea is that Matt Harvey is not just another pitcher.
I hope that’s more than just an idea.