Tonight we did not see vintage Matt Harvey, assuming a player with one year of service time can truly have a vintage. The electricity and excitement of earlier starts was not on display, and his strikeout totals were not as lofty as usual (a mere 6 Ks). And yet, Harvey was in firm control all night, his fireworks exchanged for more precision weaponry—groundball outs, namely, 14 in all. Harvey seemed to sense exactly how much energy he needed to dispatch the opposition and pitched accordingly. If dominance can be quiet, Harvey achieved it.
The Mets gave Harvey a lead lead in the bottom of the second when Wilmer Flores collected his first major league hit, then came around to score on a Omar Quintanilla single. They extended that lead slightly when John Buck singled home Ike Davis in the fifth. The Mets blew things open in the bottom of the eighth, when Flores hit a three-run double.
As the finish line appeared in sight, Harvey dialed it up a few notches over the last few frames. He ended the seventh with an impressive sitrkeout of Todd Helton, began the eighth with another K of Wilin Rosario, and rebounded from an incorrect safe call at first with a tidy GIDP. He also recovered from a scary two-out single off his knee in the ninth, getting Troy Tulowitzki to pop out for the final out in his first complete game shutout.
Full recap to come.
Game Thread Roll Call
Nice job by MetsFan4Decades; your effort in the game thread embiggens us all.
| # | Commenter | # Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | MetsFan4Decades | 175 |
| 2 | feslenraster | 161 |
| 3 | The Nameless One | 130 |
| 4 | BurleighGrimes | 84 |
| 5 | robotoverlord | 66 |
| 6 | Kepler | 63 |
| 7 | stickguy | 58 |
| 8 | elephants gerald | 57 |
| 9 | Russ | 55 |
| 10 | omegasupreme44 | 51 |