Matt Harvey has every right to prioritize his future health and earning potential. But he can’t negotiate a departure after 77 pitches of one-hit ball and claim that all he wants to do is pitch.
From Newsday’s Anthony Rieber:
“More than anything, I wanted to be out there,” Harvey said. “The way things were going, the tight game, the last thing I wanted to do was come out.”
It was The Dark Knight at his worst. Saying things that could not possibly be further from the truth:
It may seem unfair to hold Harvey responsible for last night’s 11-2 loss when he was the only Met who did his job well. If the bullpen and the defense had done their jobs, today’s headlines might proclaim that the Boras/Harvey part-time pitcher plan had passed its first test.
But this plan required four innings from a Mets bullpen that has trouble handling more than two innings, and that’s when Tyler Clippard is not missing time with back problems. This is the time when the starting pitcher is supposed to figuratively put the team on his back.
And that’s just what Harvey did for the first five innings. On national TV, against the hated Yankees, on a day when the Met bats continued their recent quiet. If the skies had opened up after the fifth inning, Harvey would not have been brought back after a long rain delay under normal circumstances. And his quotes might not have earned Rieber’s response below:
“For me, I know where I want to be and that’s on the mound and in a Mets uniform.”
“The last thing I want to do is not play and not pitch, especially if we get into the postseason.”
For not accepting responsibility, for putting his manager and teammates in the unenviable position of having to live within the limits that Harvey and Boras put in motion, and for saying he wants to be out there when he engineered the exact opposite situation, Harvey should be nominated for an Emmy for Best Actor in a Comedy Series.
Only no one in the Mets clubhouse is laughing.
Yoenis Cespedes offered to play centerfield when he came to the Mets, even though that was not his regular position. He’s stopped hitting since he was hit by a pitch last Tuesday but refuses to use that as an excuse. Cespedes may end up getting some votes for National League MVP despite only joining the Mets in August. Harvey’s been around all year and has had a pretty good year. But nobody is using “Harvey” and “MVP” in the same sentence.
Harvey showed last night that he can produce after a long layoff. Going forward, the Mets should just shut him down until the playoffs (or until the season-ending series with the Nats if the Mets have not yet cliinched), then only use him in games in which he announces beforehand that he wants to pitch as much as he can.
Superhero movies are box-office gold these days. But nobody wants to see “The Dark Knight Takes Himself Out of the Game.”
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