Pitcher Matt Harvey both encouraged and frustrated by first two outings in Royals blue
The Matt Harvey experiment with the Kansas City Royals continued to tease and tantalize in its second installment, but it ultimately left something to be desired.
Harvey, a right-handed pitcher and former first-round draft pick, rose to stardom quickly as a member of the New York Mets before injuries derailed a career trajectory that included starting an All-Star Game and pitching in a World Series within four years of his MLB debut.
Harvey made his second start for the Royals Tuesday night having not pitched in a major-league game in more than a year. He allowed four runs on five hits and two walks in 2 2/3 innings on the road in a no-decision against the St. Louis Cardinals.
“The first two innings were as good as I’ve thrown a baseball, stuff-wise, in a very long time,” Harvey said. “It’s in there. It’s just a matter of getting through the tough part when things get into pressure situations and be able to get through that.
“I don’t think it’s an issue with stuff at all. I think it’s just being able to continuously attack like I did in the first two innings and kind of getting through that little block that I have right now with pressure situations.”
All four runs, four of the five hits and both walks against Harvey came in the third inning. Similarly, he didn’t make it through the third inning after looking sharp early in his first start last week against the Cincinnati Reds at Kauffman Stadium.
Harvey has pitched 5 2/3 innings and allowed seven runs on nine hits and four walks. In the first two innings of his starts (four total innings), he has faced 14 batters, allowing two hits and one walk and striking out five.
In the most crucial situations, though, he has run into a wall. In six at-bats in high-leverage situations, as defined by Baseball-Reference.com, he has allowed three hits, one extra-base hit and four runs.
Harvey postulated that he may be trying to be too fine in those situations.
“I think the issue with runners on is I’m probably trying to pitch to weak contact too much instead of really going after guys like I obviously did in the first two innings and I have in the past,” he said. “I think, especially with what happened last start and going in that same direction today, I think thinking I needed to be ultra-spotty with location and perfect and get weak contact was a little too much of an issue.”
Overall, Royals manager Mike Matheny has been impressed with the way Harvey has thrown and the repertoire he has shown. In some ways, he has the look of a guy who could potentially take the ball every fifth day.
The conundrum will be in how hard the Royals should attempt to push Harvey, who did not have a spring training and spent about three weeks at their alternate training site, and still get the best out of him as they try to remain relevant in the playoff chase.
“I thought he was good,” Matheny said. “I thought he was really good. That third inning just kind snowballed in a hurry. You look at the stuff, that first inning he was putting more movement on the ball but didn’t sacrifice any velocity. I saw a couple really good breaking balls. I saw a slider I thought had the depth of a curveball, but it had the speed of a slider. Then he had a swing-and-miss curveball. He didn’t really get around to the changeup as much.
“I thought his stuff looked very good. It’s just a matter of how — in the middle of a season — do you stretch a guy when you’re trying to stay in every game.”
