New York Mets pitcher Matt Harvey is headed for an extended stint on the DL with a shoulder injury.
This was supposed to be Matt Harvey’s year. Now fully recovered from Tommy John surgery, as well as his Thoracic Outlet Syndrome procedure, he was finally free to be The Dark Knight. After stumbling for several starts and averaging fewer than six innings per appearance, Harvey will be out for “several weeks” with a fractured bone in his shoulder, per Yahoo Sports:
"The Mets announced Thursday that Harvey has a stress injury to the scapula bone in the right shoulder and that he’s going on the disabled list and “expected to miss several weeks.” This comes a night after Harvey’s fastball dipped to as slow as 87 mph and caused Harvey to tell reporters, “My arm was not working at all.”"
The Dark Knight is down.
Indeed, such a precipitous drop in fastball velocity is concerning. Doubly so when the Mets’ starting rotation, thought to be one of the most talented in baseball, has been beset by injuries the last two seasons.
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Looking at Harvey’s PITCHf/x game logs, both of his fastball types—of the two- and four-seam variety—displayed a sharp downward turn in average velocity in his last three starts. First at home against Pittsburgh, Harvey’s fastballs were only marginally below his average on the season, less than one mile per hour. In his next bid in Atlanta, both fastballs rested almost a full mile an hour below their season averages, a concerning trend now beginning to emerge.
Finally, in his last start against the Cubs at home, Harvey’s fastballs were both nearly two miles an hour below seasonal average, with the aforementioned low-point of 87 mph. Something was now clearly, painfully, wrong. On the field in that start, Harvey surrendered three home runs in four innings of work, two of which came in the first inning.
Luckily for the Mets, they were opposed by John Lackey, who is currently struggling with the mortality of his own baseball life. They were able to eek out a win despite Harvey throwing four innings with a broken bone in his shoulder.
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The only remedy for this injury is rest, something the Mets as a whole cannot afford to do for long, at 9.5 games behind the NL East divisional lead. The Washington Nationals are 4-6 in their last 10 games, and the Mets 6-4 in theirs. However, with Harvey now to the DL for a month, and Noah Syndergaard suffering a rehab setback, the prospects of gaining any ground should the Nationals continue to stumble wane.