Boy oh boy did us baseball fans miss Matt Harvey last season! Harvey is back and he is stronger than ever after undergoing Tommy John Surgery. Many baseball critics were curious on how he would return, scared that he won’t be as dominate and worried that he will lose some of his velocity. Well weren’t they wrong!
So far during the early start of the 2015 season Matt Harvey has been dominate on that mound. Well actually the entire New York Mets ball club has been dominate, with an impressive 14-4 start.
During his first four starts Harvey has proven that he hasn’t missed a step due to Tommy John Surgery, instead he has proven that he is the same emotionless, competitive, smooth windup, swagged out pitcher that Mets fans came to love during the 2013 season. He went 6 innings in his first 3 starts while pitching an 8 2/3 clinic against the Yankees on April 25th. He has no less than 7 strikeouts in any of his starts and only has one game of more than 3 earned runs, and during that game where he gave up 4 earned runs he happened to be sick and could have gone more than 6 innings but manager Terry Collins had to watch out for his superstar pitcher. In the young season Harvey has racked up 31 punch-outs in only 26 innings pitched and has an incredible 3 walks to go along with it.
Harvey is the fourth Mets pitcher to strike out at least seven batters in each of his first four starts in a season. The other three are Nolan Ryan (7 in 1968), Johan Santana (6 in 2009) and Pedro Martinez (5 in 2005). He’s the first pitcher in Mets history to have a sub-1.00 WHIP through the first 40 games of his career. His 2.45 ERA through 40 appearances is bettered by only Jerry Koosman (2.34) and Dwight Gooden (2.38).
Yes the season is a marathon and not a sprint, but Harvey is here to prove that he is better than Kershaw, well any pitcher at that. The Mets have a great pitching rotation but Harvey is the solidified ace and looks to carry this team in the playoffs and step up in big games when he is called upon.