Matt Harvey offers apology to Mets, who would prefer an intervention
NEW YORK -- Matt Harvey walked into the press conference at Citi Field Tuesday afternoon, flanked by Mets flacks, and into a situation he has found himself in before. In 2015, he was late in arriving to a mandatory workout before the club began its postseason run. He sat in that same room and professed his remorse and that this tardiness would not happen again.
It did not happen again Saturday. Instead, Harvey was absent from the ballpark altogether. He had stayed out too late Friday night, he admitted, then played golf the next morning. By the time he got in contact with Mets officials, it was too late, and the club had, reportedly, even sent someone to check on him in his apartment.
The incident earned the pitcher a three-game suspension from the team and another pockmark in a career that has oscillated between spectacular and worrisome.
“People make mistakes and I’ve made another mistake,” Harvey said. “There are things that I have realized in the last couple of days that I need to be doing and should not be doing. One of those I should be doing is putting myself in a better place to perform physically and be accountable for my work and that’s something I’m committing to.”
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Harvey was contrite in his return to the Mets, though not especially revelatory. He apologized privately to the team and then publicly to everyone else.
“I am extremely embarrassed by my actions,” he said.
His teammates were accepting of his mea culpa, as was manager Terry Collins, and ready to move on, but Collins’ comments gave the impression that Tuesday was as much an intervention for Harvey as it was an absolution.
The righthander has struggled over the last two seasons. He had a 4.86 ERA last year before his campaign ended abruptly so he could undergo thoracic outlet surgery. This season, he has a 5.14 ERA in six starts. His average fastball velocity has lost nearly two miles per hour from his standout return from Tommy John surgery in 2015. A flamethrowing ace who once dominated hitters has the fourth-lowest strikeout rate this year of 92 eligible starters.
Whether Harvey’s Saturday afternoon flightiness is a symptomatic of his struggles cannot be sussed out but it’s clear that Collins believes that his priorities weren’t weighted far enough towards baseball. That, as much as anything, could be troubling the manager.
“I told him he needs to make baseball No. 1,” he said. “When he did that, he was on top of the world. This guy was the best pitcher in the game when he made that the priority. When he makes that the priority again he’ll be back.
“Yeah, so be it off the field stuff, you gotta be able to have blinders. You gotta be able to put the blinders on and direct yourself down that path and say I’m not going to let that stuff in the way right now. You got six months to do that other stuff.”
The Mets must hope that Harvey finds himself and rights himself soon. They are 15-16, 5.5 games behind the Nationals in the National League East, and have had to put out a new fire nearly every day of. Yoenis Cespedes is on the disabled list. So is Noah Syndergaard, after first refusing an MRI and then suffering a partially torn right lat in his next start. A team that was supposed to be saturated with aces has just one healthy starter with a sub-4 ERA — Jacob deGrom.
Harvey will make his next start Friday, in Milwaukee, and it will be critical for him and the team. The Mets have won seven of their last 10 entering Tuesday night and the surge has given them new life, but will need its bedrock rotation to pitch as capably as they hope they can.
He has asserted that his long weekend away has given him time to ruminate and refocus but even Collins admits that words have a tendency to be empty. Don’t tell me, Collins likes to say, show me.
Harvey will be under heavy scrutiny. He said that the idea of filing a grievance of the suspension through the players union is not on his mind right now and that pitching and returning to form is. After another day that has blighted his reputation, Harvey is shouldering the blame and hoping for a rejuvenation.
“I understand that every way you can look at this situation it's completely my fault,” he said.
“It obviously hasn’t been an ideal three days for me or for everybody and the last thing I ever want to do again is put me or this team in this kind of situation ... Obviously now moving forward is to do everything I can to put myself in the best possible position to win games and be more accountable for my actions.”