CINCINNATI — Terry Collins was in the outfield during batting practice at Citi Field last Tuesday when Matt Harvey approached him and said, “I need to talk to you.”
“The way he said it,” the Mets’ manager recalled, “I knew something was eating at him.”
As it turned out, that was the start of a new Harvey plan, prescribed not by Scott Boras but by the Mets’ pitcher himself.
It led to him at least temporarily putting aside concerns about innings limits and throwing 97 pitches over 6.2 innings on Saturday in the Mets’ 10-2 win over the Reds that clinched the NL East.
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As far as Collins was concerned, that was more important than the win itself.
“I think Matt got frustrated by what happened in the Yankee game,” Collins said. “He got caught in the middle of this thing, and I’ve said all along that he’s a good teammate, but some guys in that clubhouse got turned off by it. And I can understand that.
“So I think what he did today was his way of saying to them, ‘Hey look, what happened happened. I can’t change that but I’m still the guy that wants the baseball.’ And these guys believe him.”
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As he spoke, Collins was standing in the visiting manager’s office, some 30 minutes after Jeurys Familia had closed out the win. A wild celebration was in full swing in the clubhouse, but Collins had retreated to a quiet spot — initially because I had asked him how emotional the day had been for him.
“It only got to me once, when I thought about my father during the game,” Collins said, and then suddenly his eyes were wet and he couldn’t talk for some 30 seconds.
His dad died in February, and naturally Collins wished he could have been alive to see his son finally manage a team to the postseason, at age 67.
“I’m sure he’s proud,” he finally managed to say.
Collins had a right to be proud as well, but he was quick to change the subject and talk about a revitalized Harvey and what he sees as “a team on a mission.”
The mission continues now with a likely playoff matchup against the Dodgers, one in which we’ll find out if the Mets’ young pitching is ready to match Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke strikeout for strikeout.
On this day, however, it was fitting that the Mets pounded the Reds in the clincher, a reminder their transformed offense was as vital as their young pitching in their turnaround.
Yet the Harvey drama once again took front and center, only this time for all the right reasons.
If the Mets are going to make a deep run in October they’ll surely need to count on Harvey being able to pitch, and while Collins made a point of saying the innings limits will still be in play, he believes Harvey, for whatever reason, has a different view of the situation.
“When he came to me last week he said, ‘I want to pitch. I want to stay out there. I want to throw 100 pitches and I want to do it twice (before the end of the season). “He said, ‘We’re going to win this thing and I’m going to pitch in the playoffs, and I’ve got to be ready. And I’m not ready.’?”
Pitching coach Dan Warthen said Harvey delivered an even more forceful message to him.
“He said he wants to go 100 pitches every fifth day the rest of the way,” Warthen said.
Good for Harvey. He came off after the Yankee game sounding disingenuous about how much he wanted to stay in that night, acting as if he had no say in it, so give him credit for taking control of the situation, no matter how much Scott Boras may disagree.
Harvey didn’t lay it out that way after Saturday’s game, but this time he was more definitive about his intentions.
“For all the things that people have said,” Harvey said, “the last thing I ever want to do is put the ball down, and we’re on our way to October. I’m going to be there. I’m going to be fighting every time I get the ball.”
With the message delivered, Collins and Warthen had revised the plan for Saturday, figuring Harvey would go six innings, but after the sixth the pitcher asked Collins to let him pitch the seventh.
“I said, ‘We’ve got it all set up for 7-8-9,’ and he just looked at me and said, ‘Let me go back out there.’ I said, ‘You’ve got it, big boy.’?”
Collins smiled now. He was drained from all the emotion of dealing with innings limits in recent weeks, and then the events of Saturday, thinking of his late father. But above all, the manager was exhilarated too by a single thought:
He had his ace back.
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With KRISTIE ACKERT