Matt Harvey's last work of the 2014 season gave the Mets hope for the 2015 campaign — a throwing session off the mound at Citi Field that saw him easily hit 95 mph while holding back and have the Amazin's dreaming of adding their ace back to the rotation next year.
"You can't look back and worry about what happened in the past. You look forward and say, 'Boy, that's a nice piece you can look forward to come February,' '' manager Terry Collins said before the Mets played Miami on Monday night. "It's an exciting day for Matt. He's thrilled to get out on that mound and throw. Certainly [general manager] Sandy [Alderson] and I and everybody else that was standing around was pretty excited to see it.''
For good reason. Harvey accomplished everything the team could possibly have hoped for in coming back from last October's Tommy John surgery, and set himself up to be 100 percent for spring training.
"Everything we were trying to accomplish this season has been accomplished,'' Alderson said. "From our standpoint, we wanted to make sure he was physically at a level that would ensure he wasn't behind in spring training. Secondly, he needed to be back to a state mentally where he felt comfortable going into next season and the uncertainty had been eliminated. We feel we're at that point.
"He hasn't thrown against hitters. He hasn't thrown in games. But given the schedule and natural healing process, we felt this was the right place for him to stop and rest and then pick it up next season.''
And Harvey's health has the Mets looking forward to that season before this one is even over. Monday may not have been a simulated game — they purposely eschewed letting him face live batters — but Harvey threw an up-and-down session off the mound, pitching and then resting to duplicate waiting for his team to bat.
And under the watchful eye of Collins, Alderson, pitching coach Dan Warthen and even fellow starters Zack Wheeler and Jacob deGrom (the latter pitching a few hours later against the Marlins), Harvey left everybody impressed in what the team said will almost certainly be his last outing of this season.
"He was bound and determined to try and come back, and he worked extremely hard so that he could," Collins said. "And when we slowed him down, we knew he was going to be healthy. All we were concerned about was today, getting to this point to where you threw off the mound. … You're sitting there looking at that thinking, 'Boy, that's a really nice present to have next spring.'
"He was happy to be out there. He likes to be atop that mound pitching, and you could tell. He threw one changeup and turned around with a huge smile on his face. … He threw one breaking ball that was perfect. It started in the strike zone thigh-high, and by the time it got to home plate, a pitch that you know guys are going to swing at. That's the one I've got to have. You could tell he was excited.''
Collins said Harvey threw just "80 percent," but hit 95 mph consistently in his first time with a radar gun on him since his surgery.
The Mets avoided letting him throw to live batters — bullpen coach Ricky Bones stood at the plate but didn't swing — for fear he'd ramp up the velocity too much, and forbade him from throwing any sliders to spare his elbow from strain.
"He was privy to the gun readings at the end,'' said Alderson, adding Harvey won't have any offseason limitations. "What we were looking for was not the upside, the top," Alderson said. "We were looking for a range. We didn't want him to blow everything out, but we also wanted to get a pretty realistic indication of where we thought he was. … He got it up to 95 today pretty consistently, so he was happy with that.''
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