WASHINGTON — There were many moments along the way for Matt Harvey in 2013, a lot of pit stops and weigh stations between the first win of the year over the Padres and the Dark Knight cover of Sports Illustrated, between the All-Star Game and that dreadful day against Detroit in August when the elbow screamed "Enough!"
But this was The Moment.
This was when you started to understand there was something special brewing. This was April 19, Citi Field, cold and raw, 26,675 people in the stands, the Nationals in the house. From the moment he struck out Denard Span on three pitches leading off the first to the bases-loaded, none-out jam he escaped closing out the seventh, this was the first time a Harvey start turned into a special event; Happy Harvey Day became a thing not long after.
"A good start," Harvey remembered late Wednesday afternoon, before the Mets would lose a 2-1 pitchers' duel to the Nationals. "An enjoyable day for me, for a lot of reasons."
For one thing, the Nats were already a stone in the Mets' shoe, and beating them meant something, as it still does. Beyond that, Harvey's opponent that Friday night was Stephen Strasburg, with whom Harvey shared many things: an agent (Scott Boras), an electric right arm, a prominent brick in his team's foundation — and, soon enough, a crescent-shaped scar on his elbow.
Harvey outpitched Strasburg all night. And if there was any doubt about it, the modest and chilled Citi Field gathering lent their voices to the sound track of a game the Mets ultimately won 7-1.
Harvey's better!
Harvey's better!
Harvey's better!
"It makes that matchup going forward even more special," Harvey said.
So that will make everything about Thursday — save for the weather, which is supposed to be even colder and rawer than it was on April 19, 2013 — perfect, when Harvey returns to a major league mound in a regular-season game for the first time in 593 days. Harvey versus Strasburg is precisely the kind of marquee pitching matchup designed to bring the best out of both pupils of Boras U.
And the Harvey half of the equation is exactly the tonic the Mets want to see — need to see — to affirm all the positive vibes they accrued this spring.
"You have to be exited — very excited," Mets manager Terry Collins said. "I bet even [Nats manager] Matt Williams is excited to see it because this in one of the great players in the game.
"If you love the game, you love to watch him, and it's why the Nats, who are missing a few players now, it's fun to play them when they're at their best, too. That's fun. That's what the game is about, competition, when it's fun to watch on both sides. That's why we can compete."
The most fun, of course, belongs to the people who've waited for 20 months to see Harvey pitch a game that matters again, Mets fans who've invested so much of their baseball soul, tied to the notion Harvey can be this generation's Seaver, this generation's Gooden.
That, of course, remains the great unknown of Matt Harvey, despite how much buzz he brings to everything he does on a baseball diamond and off. When he takes the mound Thursday afternoon, he will be exactly 26 years and 13 days old; his career record as a major leaguer will stand at 12 wins, 10 losses.
When Seaver was 26 years and 13 days old — Nov. 30, 1970 — his record in the big leagues was 75-44, he already had one World Series title, one Cy Young and one Hickock Belt (awarded to the top professional athlete in the U.S. from 1950-76) on his dossier (his career ERA was actually a tick higher, 2.49 to 2.39 — but he'd also thrown 1,093 innings; Harvey has 237 ²/₃).
When Gooden was 26 years and 13 days old — Nov. 29, 1990 — he was 119-46, he already had one World Series title, one Cy Young (and undoubtedly would have had a Hickock Belt if there had still been a Hickock Belt to win) on his résumé (his ERA was also higher than Harvey's, at 2.83 … but he'd thrown 1,523 ²/₃ innings.
So Thursday means every bit as much to Harvey as it does to those of us who enjoy studying him, following him, obsessing over him: Thursday he can stop being an ambiguity, a growth stock, a source of buzz above everything else. Thursday he can start being a pitcher again, a good one, worthy of a city's time and attention every fifth day.
"I'm ready for that," Harvey said.
Join the crowd.
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