Put On Your Kevlar

I live by a very strict rule, and that's this: "Nobody cares about your fantasy team." I think that in eight years of blogging I've … maybe … mentioned a fantasy team of mine once or twice. There really is no reason for you to care about who is on my fantasy team and how they're doing. So I never mention them, even though I'm sure many of you who are reading this are fantasy baseball junkies yourselves. But tonight, I'll make an exception:

You know that you're doing well in a fantasy sports draft when somebody in the room, or in the chat if you draft on Yahoo!, gives you a "dammit" or another expletive of their choice. So I draft Matt Harvey in the 11th round of a 12 team league, pick number 126. How mad was the guy who was going to take him three picks later? First I get "slimeball" in the chat room. Then I get "F*** YOU" texted to my phone (and that doesn't spell "flag"). He wasn't done there. I get a voice mail after the draft:

"So on top of screwing me in the draft, you're dodging my phone call? Not good, not good. I know where you live, I know where you sleep. I will hunt you doooooown! Matt Harvey? At that round? Are you kidding me? I was a shoo-in, that was miiiiiine! You no good lousy bum. We will deal with this. You think you're getting off easy on Saturday. I told you we're going on a mission? Put on your Kevlar, dude. We're going deep. Good luck, God bless."

I'm not sure what that means, but if you don't see a blog post from me on Saturday night, you'll know what happened. (Look for me face down in a random gutter in Queens.) But considering what Matt Harvey did tonight, the question should really be "how the hell did he last until pick 126?" So no, I don't feel bad about taking him when I did. In fact, I'll have a drink to it on Saturday.

Here's the most impressive thing about Harvey against the Padres on Wednesday: He pitched seven innings, gave up only one hit and struck out ten batters in an 8-4 win, and at least early on he was doing it with pretty much just his fastball. He was mixing sliders in every once in a while but damn, Harvey was basically daring this lineup to hit number one and they couldn't do it. You could reason that "well, it was the Padres". Bull. Major league hitters are supposed to catch up to a fastball every now and then. They sure as hell caught up to LaTroy Hawkins' fastball in the ninth, didn't they. But they couldn't quite catch up to Matt Harvey. And you knew the Padres were completely screwed when they started coming out with the cold weather gear … the head warmers and all that. Funny how on even a cold night how much colder you feel when you're down 8-0 to Matt Harvey. Not exactly Kevlar, but against Harvey, the Padres could have used some.

More and more people think that appointment viewing is dead between DVR's and Netflix. Matt Harvey is appointment viewing this season, kids. Don't miss a start. You'll be glad you didn't pass him up. I'm glad I didn't pass him up, whether it be in the 11th round, or at 7PM on a Wednesday night.