With the recovering Matt Harvey being held to a pitch limit of 90 — and perhaps mindful that Terry Collins once allowed Johan Santana to throw something like 14,000 pitches in pursuit of the franchise’s solo no-no, Newsday’s David Lennon quotes an unnamed source as claiming the Mets will only allow The Dark Knight no more than 32 starts this season. So that means he can pitch long relief in September, right?
The next phase of the plan goes into effect this week when the Mets temporarily switch to a six-man rotation and call up Rafael Montero to start Tuesday in Miami. The Mets will go back to five again but intend to use a sixth starter periodically from that point forward to give Harvey extra rest on occasion. The Mets also could get looks at Long Islander Steven Matz and Noah Syndergaard in these spot starts, barring injuries, of course.
Harvey is 4-0 with a 3.04 ERA through his first four starts and is averaging 6 2/3 innings, a pace that would put him at 200 innings for 30 starts or 213 innings for 32 by the end of the season. That’s more than the 180 to 190 the Mets had budgeted for Harvey, so they’ll need to get creative — and why Harvey’s complete-game push in Saturday’s 8-2 rout of the Yankees won’t be happening much from now on.