NEW YORK — Although the calendar has yet to flip over to June, Matt Harvey and the Mets have reached a critical point of the season. The team’s Opening Day starter is 3-7 with a 6.08 ERA (63 ERA+) through 10 starts and 53 1/3 innings, and he’s shown no signs of improving. The Nationals blasted him for three homers and five runs in five innings Tuesday.
On Friday, Harvey climbed the mound at Citi Field and faced hitters rather than toss his usual between-starts bullpen session. The team changed up the right-hander’s routine “quite a bit,” according to manager Terry Collins in an effort to get him back on track.
“There’s some things that we’re seeing in certain situation when the hitters are in there that he’s doing mechanically that we got to get fixed,” said Collins. “Therefore we want hitters in there — even though it’s tough to simulate a regular game — at least when you’ve got a hitter in the batter’s box he’s looking at things a little different.
“His (bullpen sessions) have been out of sight,” added the manager. “When the games have started, there are some things that are getting changed, so we just want to put some hitters in there. Basically it’s a side with a hitter in the batter’s box. There’s some things we’re seeing when the hitters are in there that need to get fixed.”
Infielder Matt Reynolds and outfielder Alejandro De Aza — a right-handed hitter and a left-handed hitter — alternated “at-bats” against Harvey, who threw about an inning’s worth of pitches. Here he is facing De Aza about four hours before first pitch between the Mets and Dodgers at Citi Field:
“He’s got to use his lower half better. Got to get his arm in a better angle consistently,” said Collins when asked what specifically Harvey is working on. “There’s a couple other things he’s doing I think are leading to that. That’s what (pitch coach Dan Warthen is) working on.”
The Mets insist Harvey is healthy and that fatigue is not an issue even though his numbers get worse the deeper he pitches into the game. Opponents have a .666 OPS against Harvey the first time through the lineup, an .844 OPS the second time though, and a 1.326 OPS the third time through. Every pitcher has worse numbers each time through the lineup, but not that much worse.
No, Harvey’s problems are all mechanics, according to Collins. (Neither Harvey nor Warthen have spoken to the media since Harvey’s last start.) Pitching from the stretch has been a big problem in particular. Opponents are hitting like an MVP candidate when men are on base against Harvey: .364/.393/.589 (163 OPS+). Yikes.
“It’s about muscle memory more than anything,” Collins said. “We’re trying to get that to be where you don’t think about. You just do it. Just stay with what was working earlier in the game. When runners get on base, all of sudden we see some things that are changing. It’s all about trying to get him to relax and pitch his game.”
The Mets made the surprising decision to keep the rotation on turn and have Harvey make his next start. The team had an off-day Thursday and could have easily given Harvey a few extra days — they could have outright skipped his next start all together if they wanted — but chose not to. They’re trying to fix this on the fly, which can be challenging.
The season is not that young at this point. Harvey’s slow start is not really a slow start anymore. The Mets are looking for answers — “We’ve exhausted the pitch tipping idea,” Collins joked — and the plan right now is to increase the intensity of Harvey’s between-starts work to clean up his mechanics. They’ll find out whether it works when he makes his next start Monday.
“The key is he’s not making pitches,” Collins said. “It’s just that he’s not making pitches when he needs to. That’s what we gotta get fixed.”
