After several extremely rough outings in which New York Mets superstar pitcher Matt Harvey gave up at least eight hits and five runs in three consecutive starts, the Dark Knight appeared to bounce back in a Memorial Day start against the Chicago White Sox. The 2013 All-Star threw seven shutout innings and gave up only two hits while striking out six and walking one. This was hiss first win since May 8 against the San Diego Padres, when he went six innings and gave up two runs with a strong 10 strikeouts.
Matt Harvey Dominates in Return to Form
While Monday’s start was incredibly promising, is it appropriate to say that Harvey is finally back to All-Star form?
Looking at how he has performed all season long, Harvey has not looked anything like the dominant righty that played a key role in the Mets World Series run last season. Aside from that start in San Diego, Harvey has not struck out more than seven batters in any of his starts, and Monday was the first time he had pitched for more than six innings in a game.
Harvey has also struggled at keeping the ball on the ground, as there have been more fly balls hit off of him than grounders in eight of his eleven starts, with the total discrepancy being eighty-five ground balls to a massive 111 fly balls.
He did well in changing that Monday, as he gave up nine ground balls compared to five fly balls, and did extremely well at limiting solid contact all game long against an above-average hitting team in the White Sox.
Harvey’s home-road splits are rather surprising, as he has done slightly better on the road in hitter-friendly ballparks like Coors Field and Great American Ballpark than in the extremely pitcher friendly Citi Field. He has given up an equal number of home runs both on the road and at home with four apiece, and has even done that while pitching fewer innings at home.
While his stats up until Monday were far less than stellar, he seems to be extremely close to returning to All-Star form.
What Harvey has gone through up to this point in the season is extremely similar to the rough patch experienced by former AL Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber last season.
Coming off of a Cy Young Award winning season, expectations were sky high for Kluber; he was only 29, and had just come off of a phenomenal season in which he won eighteen games with an ERA of 2.44 to go along with 269 strikeouts. However, Kluber struggled for almost the entire first half of the season, as he didn’t even get selected to the All-Star Game. The Cleveland Indians were struggling, and so was Kluber.
Kluber went on to eventually turn his season around, as he finished 2015 with an ERA of 3.49 and 245 strikeouts over 222 innings. While Kluber was not at all his Cy Young Award winning self, he was still extremely effective in bouncing back from a rough first half in order to produce a solid season in which he finished ninth in the AL Cy Young Award voting.
If Kluber could come back from a first half like that, there is no doubt that Harvey has the ability to do the exact same. At only 27 years old, Harvey still has time to learn and grow, and it is undeniable that he has the ability to rebound from a rough start to the season and come back stronger and better than ever.
Main Photo:
