Wait, What Just Happened?
July 27th, 2012 by slangon
What is this strange feeling I’m feeling this morning? I’m not in a super cranky mood. I’m holding my head up just a little bit higher. I have a bit of a spring in my step. I haven’t felt like this since before the All-Star break.
Oh, that’s right. This is how you feel when you team actually wins a game. And a lot of that had to do with this guy.
In case you haven’t had a chance to run out and check the Mets’ box score from last night (and who in their right mind wouldn’t. Everyone loves the Mets, right?), one of the Mets top prospects, Matt Harvey mad his big league debut in Phoenix against the Diamondbacks. I’m not sure how much the decision to bring him up had to do with the injuries to Gee and Santana and how much it had to do with the team needing to do something, anything to inject a little positivity into a team and fan base that have been subjected to a horrendous couple of weeks that have effectively erased a lot of good feelings built up during the first half of the season. I guess the why of it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it happened.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Mets farm system, Harvey and Zack Wheeler are pretty much the cream of the crop when it comes to their pitching prospects, so to have one of your Top 2 guys come up was a pretty big deal, accompanied by a truck load of hype.
And you know what, last night at least, Matt Harvey lived up to the hype and then some. He pitched 5.1 strong innings, allowing 3 hits and no runs. He walked 3 and struck out 11, which is a Mets franchise record for most whiffs by a pitcher making their big league debut. For those of you counting out there, that means he struck out more guys than Doc Gooden, Tom Seaver, or Jerry Koosman. That’s pretty impressive. And to top it all off, he went 2 for 2 at the plate with a double. It was what Keith Hernandez likes to refer to as a “Little League Night”.
Am I expecting Harvey to do this every time out? No. Am I expecting him to throw some stinkers? Of course. But it does give me a lot of faith in Sandy Alderson’s vision for this team.
Watching the first 5 innings of that game was sublime. Watching the bullpen do everything it could to blow it for the kid was torture. Somehow, they came out of it and got him a win. I look forward to many more. *fingers crossed*
Ha! Thankfully, since it was a west coast road game, I stopped watching shortly after Harvey left the game. I think Edgin was in when I went to sleep, so I missed all of the bullpen shenanigans.