It’s a match: Royals, newcomer Harvey join forces, try to find path back to prominence
No, the Dark Knight won’t rise in Kansas City.
But Matt Harvey might.
In a short period of time. the former New York Mets ace and current Kansas City Royals right-hander turned into a star that burned so bright and fast that the only thing to overshadow him was when his career seemingly went supernova and exploded.
Harvey may be shaken and more vulnerable now than people recall seeing him, but he’s still standing, and still pitching.
A free agent this offseason, Harvey went unsigned throughout the winter and through initial spring training camps before the pandemic shut down baseball.
He signed a minor-league deal with the Royals on July 28 and made his first appearance in a major-league game since July 18, 2019 when he started the second game of Wednesday’s doubleheader.
“It was kind of a surreal moment of a lot of different nerves that I hadn’t felt in a very long time,” Harvey said after his start.
Harvey flashed the ability that made him such a draw and which has intrigued teams.
Through 2 2/3 innings he provided ample reason for excitement. Signed off the street less than a month earlier and he showed a fastball up to 95 mph, struck out four, walked one and allowed one hit.
Harvey then gave up three runs in a three batter span on a single and back-to-back home runs.
“I was really impressed. It was even better than even what I expected or saw on video, seeing it live,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said of Harvey. “I’m really happy with the way the ball was jumping out of his hand. I thought the breaking ball looked good.
“... Overall, it was good to see that kind of velo again. Threw some sliders behind in the count. We even saw some good changeups. I thought it was a good representation of where this might go.”
The Dark Knight
A former No. 7 overall draft pick and native of Connecticut, Harvey arrived on one of the game’s largest stages — New York City — as a young, good-looking, 6-foot-4, 220-pound, intense, brooding figure with just enough of a hint of brashness and a pedigree to capture the attention of fans along with an fastball upwards of 95 miles per hour.
He hit the ground running at the perfect time for a franchise in search of a new swagger and confidence.
By May of his first full season in the majors, Harvey was on his way to starting the All-Star Game in his home stadium later that summer. Sports Illustrated dubbed him “The Dark Knight of Gotham” in a 2013 magazine cover story.
He even had a symbol featured prominently in his locker that combined the batman logo and the silhouette of a pitcher with Harvey’s jersey number — 33.
Even after missing the entire 2014 season due to Tommy John surgery, he remained the same level of presence and held onto his cache. ESPN E:60 documented his return in a special titled “The Dark Knight Rises.”
He anchored the rotation that led the Mets to the World Series, where they lost to the Royals in 2015.
Of course, that World Series created the infamous moment when he emerged from the dugout in the ninth inning of Game 5 the image of the ace who wanted the ball in the most crucial moment imaginable with the Mets facing elimination but holding a 2-0 lead.
Unmoved by the theatrical vibes of the moment, the Royals chased Harvey from the game and went on to force extra innings and clinch the World Series title.
And Harvey’s downturn hadn’t even started yet.
The decline
In 2016, Harvey struggled on the mound. He posted a 4-10 record with a 4.86 ERA. His velocity was down. His strikeout rate was down. His hit and walk rates were up.
That aura of seeming invincibility faded as opponents collectively enjoyed a slash line of .302/.345/.452 against Harvey, at least 90 points higher in each category and a jump of 170 points in slugging percentage.
Eventually, Harvey received a diagnosis of thoracic outlet syndrome. Blood vessels or nerves between the collarbone and first rib get compressed to the extent it causes pain in the shoulder and neck, as well as numbness in the fingers.
Harvey had surgery to remove the first rib and underwent a physical rehab program that allowed him to return to the mound in 2017, but he wasn’t the same.
“That surgery was so new at the time,” Harvey said. “There were really no guidelines to how long you should take off, when you should start throwing again. I think I pushed way too hard too early. It kind of put me physically in a really tough spot to overcome.”
The Mets traded him to the Cincinnati Reds in 2018.
After the 2018 season, Harvey became a free agent and signed with the Los Angeles Angels, but his struggles continued and that organization released him in July of last year. He signed with the Oakland Athletics in August and pitched in the minor leagues.
From 2012 through 2015, Harvey made 65 appearances (all starts) and went 25-18 with a 2.53 ERA, with a 1.00 WHIP and 9.5 strikeout per nine innings.
From 2017 through 2019, Harvey made 63 appearances in the majors (58 starts) and went 15-21 with a 5.89 ERA, 1.47 WHIP and 6.9 strikeouts per nine innings.
“There were a lot of mechanical issues that kind of started with spring training and was just really hard for me to work through,” Harvey said of last year with the Angels. “There was a different pitching philosophy that I was not used to that I think really altered the way that I throw.
“Obviously, I’m not speaking negatively about that organization whatsoever. But it was just a different type of pitching that I wasn’t used to. I kind of got into a mechanical rut.”
End of the road?
The height of his success having gotten farther away and almost completely lost in the rear-view mirror, Harvey took advantage of the time he wasn’t with any team to give his body a “little bit of a break,” but he also changed the way he trained.
He incorporated more shoulder stability and mobility exercises into his routines, added more work with bands and built smaller muscles up with the help of a physical therapist.
He and his father Ed, his high school baseball coach, went back to square one and rebuilt his throwing motion.
He still needed another chance.
The one-time toast of New York didn’t spend his time during the pandemic at some fancy baseball facility with high tech gadgets measuring his every move. No, he played catch with his brother-in-law in the backyard.
“Well, I think about March 15th I moved to my sister’s house with my sister, brother-in-law and two nieces, that put a lot of perspective into a lot of different things in this whole process,” Harvey said.
He was in a boat fishing when he got a somewhat startling phone call from his agent, Scott Boras: The Royals wanted to sign him and send him to work with their player development staff at their alternate training site this summer, T-Bones Stadium in Kansas City, Kansas.
Thankful to get another chance in the majors, Harvey still fights the urge to look backward as he tries to carve out a path forward.
“I think too many times I go back and watch 2013 highlights and trying to get back to doing what I did then and throwing the ball like I did then,” Harvey said. “I don’t know if that’s ever going to come back. I feel like it will.”
A new beginning
Royals director of pitching performance Paul Gibson pitched in the major leagues, and he also worked as an area scout in the northeast when Harvey was in high school.
Gibson saw Harvey pitch roughly 10-15 times as an amateur. A New York resident, he was also familiar with Harvey’s rise and the bravado that came with it.
Gibson also saw a very different attitude in the guy who showed up in July.
“There’s no doubt,” Gibson said. “This game has a way of humbling all of us at different points in our life and career. He obviously rode at the highest level in the biggest market and then hit some rough spots. During that time, I’m not sure he necessarily realized what he needed to do to get back to where he was.
“But he showed up at the T-Bones ballpark the first day and we got to talking, I recognized very quickly that he had been humbled. He had reached a point where he had a lot of questions and not enough answers. And he went to work right away.”
The Royals’ scouting and player development staff did its homework on Harvey.
By the time he arrived, they’d had input from scouts, as well as video, piles of Rapsodo and Trackman data. They’d also talked to numerous people who had coached him at various times in his career.
Harvey’s receptiveness and openness with all of the KC pitching coaches and staff made one thing very clear:
“It let us know that he was not the Dark Knight guy that had the persona that we were expecting,” Gibson said.
Gibson has confidence that Harvey will continue to get better with more opportunities, but he cautions that nobody should expect the 2015 version of Harvey right now.
The time off, lack of a spring training and time between appearances in the majors are all factors — but not excuses, Gibson said.
Even in his one brief outing, Gibson saw what he described as a player on the brink of not worrying about mechanics and just “getting after it.”
“When that day comes, that’ll be when we know what we’re going to get,” Gibson said.
Gibson has no magical powers of premonition. He hopes to see Harvey regain a form somewhat reminiscent of his former self, but he offers no guarantees.
He also has received numerous phone calls and text messages from mutual acquaintances expressing how much they’re pulling for Harvey.
“Growing up in New York and also playing for the Mets and the Yankees, I’ve watched this movie before where that market and close to your hometown is really difficult for some,” Gibson said. “You feel like you’re on top of it, but it’s really difficult. It’s a great market when you’re doing well, and it’s a really difficult market when it goes bad. There’s not a lot of compassion.”
Gibson also knows every year there seems to be a pitcher or player viewed as a low-risk reclamation project that ends up paying dividends.
The Royals have seen it happen in their own organization. Gibson certainly hopes a different environment will foster similar results for Harvey.
“That New York thing can really damage you when things go bad,” Gibson said. “I think once he gets that monkey off his shoulder and grows accustomed to a great place to play with great people around him and a lot of care, I think a guy like this flourishes in that kind of opportunity.
“I’m really optimistic. I realize that the naysayers out there will say history says it’s different. But there is always a guy that’s able to reinvent things and be able to make it back and make contributions.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
