Five years ago today, the Mets beat the Nationals, 7-1. The Mets improved to 8-7 as Ike Davis and Lucas Duda each treated the Friday night home crowd to two home runs. Somehow the game feels like it happened yesterday, and simultaneously, a million years ago. The box score doesn’t indicate a game that would warrant a five-year anniversary retrospective. On paper, it appears to be a nice, early-season aberration in an otherwise disappointing 74-88 campaign. Nobody in the starting lineup remains on the Mets’ active roster and there are no obvious bearings this random April 2013 game has on the 2018 Mets.
Except, of course, it was the “Har-vey’s Better!” game. And I was there with 26,000 other Mets fans, giving Matt Harvey my full-throated approval.
The disappointingly sparse crowd at Citi Field will have an “I was there when…” story for years to come. Harvey. Strasburg. Let’s do this.
— Jordan Rabinowitz (@JordanRab) April 19, 2013
Let’s rewind. Like I said, April 19, 2013 feels like yesterday, and simultaneously, a million years ago.
Harvey was only three starts deep into 2013 and 13 into his MLB career, but there was already enough evidence supporting the theory that his first duel with Nationals phenom Stephen Strasburg was a marquee event, the first of many between the divisional rivals to come. The game would clearly not be a referendum on which team was better (come on, the reigning NL East champions vs. the team starting Jordany Valdespin?) but could gauge which young hard-throwing righty was better destined for superstardom and generational dominance.
Strasburg had his electric 2010 debut and already a successful (if not overpowering) post-Tommy John season under his belt. But his first few starts in 2013 were inconsistent, whereas Harvey came into the night virtually unhittable. He’d allowed just six hits and two earned runs across 22 innings over his first three starts, striking out 25 and walking six. Nobody paid mind to Harvey’s small sample size. We just saw his stuff, and that stuff looked like it would confound hitters for years.
Everything started coming up Mets early, as they jumped to a 2-0 lead before Strasburg could get out of the first. Strasburg settled in, but Harvey sparkled in a way that was indistinguishable from so many of his starts that season (although by gamescore, it was actually just his 11th best start of the 26 he made that year). The tension of the ensuing pitchers’ duel was only compounded by news trickling into the ballpark of the manhunt in the Boston suburbs for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Not at all to conflate the real-world implications of the bombing earlier that week with a baseball game, but it’s hard not to remember the “Harvey’s Better” game and the capture of Tsarnaev as inextricably linked. The oncoming catharsis at Citi Field had as much to do with news of the latter appearing on the scoreboard, as anything Harvey did better than Strasburg.
Zeroes were traded until the sixth, when Davis and Duda both tattooed Strasburg for their first homers of the night. It was 4-0 Mets. Our guy was cruising and their guy had suddenly unraveled. Then it happened.
Even on that night, Harvey was only marginally better, not that anyone at Citi Field cared. The score was what it was and the present deserved to be celebrated.
Because the unfortunate news is that with five years of hindsight: No, Harvey is not better.
Harvey was better, on that night and during that season. His exploits earned him the All-Star Game start at Citi Field, and he finished his abbreviated year with a .0931 WHIP, 157 ERA+ and an MLB-leading 2.01 FIP — figures he has never come close to matching. To his credit, Strasburg finished the year with a 3.00 ERA and struck out nearly 200 batters, but 2013 Harvey was better. And April 19, 2013, Harvey was better.
But the totality of Harvey is not better than the totality of Strasburg, and with Tommy John and thoracic outlet surgeries permanently altering who Harvey is as a pitcher, it feels like the book on Harvey vs. Strasburg has been written. It’s hardly worth getting into the numbers (if only because focusing on Harvey’s post-2015 career is going to make you seriously depressed), but it’s evident Strasburg, when healthy, is one of the best pitchers in the National League. Harvey, since the start of 2016, is 9-18 with a 5.71 ERA and a 2.08 K/BB rate (among a slew of other uninspiring stats I could have picked out).
If the “Harvey’s Better!” game is anything, it’s the starkest, clearest lesson we have in the volatility and unpredictability of young arms. It feels like Harvey has already lived five careers, from projected mid-rotation starter, to the Dark Knight, to Comeback Player of the Year, to World Series hero-turned-goat, to an injury-riddled cautionary tale just trying to keep his rotation spot. Strasburg too never quite became the perennial Cy Young candidate many expected when he hit the cover of Sports Illustrated after striking out 22 in his first two career starts.
Life is unfair, and unfair most to the elbows and shoulders of people who throw baseballs 98 mph for a living. Harvey was better, but he’s not anymore.
Photo credit: Adam Hunger – USA Today Sports
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