Harvey repays Mets' confidence with brilliant performance
Terry Collins said he was sticking with Matt Harvey until he figured it out. And figure it out he did Monday, at least for one afternoon.
The embattled right-hander turned in his best performance of the season with seven shutout innings against the Chicago White Sox that left Mets fans serenading him with cheers.
Related: Collins continues to have struggling Harvey's back
Harvey looked nothing like the pitcher who's inspired multiple derisive headlines from New York tabloids through the season's first two months. He took a no-hitter into the fifth inning and allowed just two hits on the day while striking out six, lowering his ERA to 5.37. He departed to chants of "Harvey! Harvey!" from the Queens faithful, who booed him off the Citi Field mound on May 19.
"I think it's a first step," Harvey told Ken Davidoff of the New York Post. "Obviously this doesn't mean anything unless I continue this, what we've been working on. It's a work in progress."
He seemed to get better as the game wore on, a welcome sight for the Mets. Hitters came into the game sporting a .301/.326/.518 line against the 27-year-old facing him a second time; those numbers jumped to .509/.563/.764 on the third trip through the order. Harvey's command and velocity didn't waver as he went on Monday, which could be thanks to correcting an undisclosed mechanical flaw over the weekend.
"The second time through the order, we're seeing things he's doing that are keeping him from having the ability to make the pitches he needs to make," Collins told reporters over the weekend. "We're seeing a velocity drop, and there is a reason for that. We're seeing a lack of a feel for his breaking ball."
Neil Walker gave Harvey his fourth win of the season by hitting a seventh-inning home run to lift the Mets to a 1-0 victory.
"For all the notoriety of him struggling, he wasn't struggling today," said White Sox manager Robin Ventura, whose club is on a seven-game losing streak. "I thought he threw great. Looked like he had great command, everything. We couldn't get anything going."