Spring training is a time when healthy players work on things and a time when players coming off of injuries simply work on getting into shape. As such, it’s never a good idea to look too hard at stats or individual outings.
That said, Matt Harvey’s return to game play after thoracic outlet surgery last summer was always going to be watched a lot more closely than most spring outings. It happened yesterday against the Cardinals. The verdict: eh.
Harvey put in 1.2 innings of work and tossed 39 pitches. His first inning was a 1-2-3 affair with a pair of strikeouts and a groundout to end the inning. In the second inning things went sideways: he allowed four hits, four earned runs and one home run before leaving with two outs.
Again: results don’t matter in spring training and, obviously, a guy’s first game action since last July 4 is going to show some rust. Maybe the most notable thing was his velocity. After the game there were references to him hitting the mid-90s, but the TV gun showed him consistently around 92-93 on his fastball, which is softer than he’s used to throwing.
Coming in to spring training the Mets had no idea what to expect from Harvey this year. One start in, they probably still don’t.