The Dark Knight Returns

With the injuries to both Steven Matz and Seth Lugo, the safety net was gone. Not only did Matt Harvey have to begin the year in the rotation, but he was going to have to be the Harvey of old to give the Mets a chance to fulfill their hopes of reclaiming the National League East. 

During Spring Training, that was far from a certainty. His velocity and confidence were all over the place. It was not until the end of Spring Training that Harvey began to look more like his old self. Still, when he took the mound on a cold wet night, there was doubt as to what we would be. 

Harvey was great. 

Now, it wasn’t quite the Harvey of old. He featured his two seamer more almost scrapping his four seamer. Instead of being in the upper 90s, he was sitting mostly at 94. He pitched more to contact than rack up the strikeouts. Still, his secondary pitches were there, especially his vaunted slider. With that, he might not have been the 2013 or 2015 Harvey, but he was still great. 

His only mistake was a thigh high fastball to Matt Kemp who deposited the pitch into the left field seats giving the Braves a 1-0 lead. 

In a rare sight for a pitcher who has historically gotten low run support, the Mets responded right away in the bottom of the fifth. 

Neil Walker finally got his first hit of the year. The red hot Jay Bruce followed with a single of his own. Both would score on Travis d’Arnaud‘s RBI double. 

It was a huge hit for d’Arnaud bot just because it gave the Mets the lead, but also because it was his first RBI off a left-handed pitcher since September 14, 2015. That’s not a typo – d’Arnaud had no RBIs off a left-handed pitcher last year. In what is a huge year for d’Arnaud, he got his first big hit. 

In the sixth, Wilmer Flores, who absolutely kills left-handed pitching, hit a two run homer right down the left field line off Jaime Garcia to give the Mets a 4-1 lead.

https://twitter.com/mets/status/850148178263408640 

Those four runs were enough for Harvey. Harvey lasted 6.2 innings allowing three hits, two runs, two earned, no walks, and four strikeouts. Two of his four strikeouts came in the seventh as he was pushing towards the finish line. He was then chased by Kemp’s second homer of the night. 

You honestly could not have expected more from Harvey. He was economical throwing just 77 pitches. He pitched to contact and enduced weak contact. He dominated. With that, the Mets rotation looks great again. 

Jerry Blevins got the last out of the inning before turning it over to Fernando Salas and Addison Reed.  Salas faced a bases loaded two out jam, but he was able to get out of it by striking out Swanson. 
There would be no save opportunity as the Mets added two in the seventh to make it a 6-2 game. Asdrubal Cabrera singled home Michael Conforto, who was hit by a pitch when pinch hitting for Blevins. Later in the inning, Reyes scored when Dansby Swanson threw the ball offline trying to complete a double play on the Yoenis Cespedes grounder. 

Game Notes: Jose Reyes got his first base hit after having started the year going 0-12. Flores got the start over Lucas Duda with the left-handed pitcher on the mound. Tim Tebow hit an opposite field home run in his first at-bat for Columbia

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