I know what you were all thinking. Shannon and his Matt Harvey obsession are on vacation, and that temporary guy won’t be writing about Harvey, right? Wrong!
Oh well, I guess you’ve all realized that you’re going to have to read about Harvey’s performance again tonight, but I’m sure by now your somewhat looking forward to reading about how Harvey imploded, and validated the trade in May, right? Wrong!
Truth is, “Harv” was on his game tonight, after a quality start last time out against the Cubs, he pitched arguably the best game so far coming off of his surgery.
The first inning was one of those solid innings, his fastball reached 93 mph, and Freddie Freeman looked completely off balanced against him. He even walked off the field with poise.
Harvey continued to look sharp through the first three innings, only giving up one soft hit to Dansby Swanson.
However, in the fourth, it looked like the 90 degree heat of a warm Atlanta night got to him. He started to pitch considerably slower, lost velocity on his fastball and was sweating profusely. He got out of the inning allowing only one run, a RBI-double to Tyler Flowers.
Harvey then regained composure in the fifth, and powered through 6.2 innings, allowing only one run.
The look on Matt’s face when he was lifted from the game was somewhat surprising. Despite pitching really well, he looked like he wanted to stay in and/or could have preformed better.
What impressed me most was that he got outs without overpowering hitters. He only got two strikeouts, but induced week contact all game long. This was vintage Harvey playing to modern Harvey strengths.
