New York Mets’ Celebrate Harvey Day; Plan To Skip Matt Again

Wednesday night at Citi Field brings something New York Mets fans haven’t witnessed in a while thanks to a skipped start: Harvey Day.

• New York Mets (73-59) vs Philadelphia Phillies (53-80)
• Matt Harvey (11-7, 2.48 ERA) – Aaron Nola (5-1, 3.26 ERA)
• National League
• Today, 7:10 PM on CSPh, SNY
• Citi Field, Flushing, New York

By Robby Sabo

Wednesday night in Flushing, NY brings a slightly different feel to Citi Field than normal. Instead of home crowd used to witnessing their 2015 New York Mets absolutely smear the Philadelphia Phillies all over the diamond, they come into this one having watched a 14-8 drubbing at the hands of Philly the night before.

With the series now knotted at one game apiece, Mets fans get to celebrate Harvey Day during the rubber-game of this three-game set.

Tonight’s pitching matchup: @MattHarvey33 (11-7, 2.48 ERA) vs. Aaron Nola (5-1, 3.26 ERA) http://t.co/Os9j2Y8kBh pic.twitter.com/tDN9Xi86Oj

— New York Mets (@Mets) September 2, 2015

Happy #HarveyDay! Harvey takes the mound at 7:10p. Watch on @SNYtv, @MLBTV or listen on @WOR710, @ESPNDeportesNY. pic.twitter.com/i3KBvXI9eQ — New York Mets (@Mets) September 2, 2015

Tonight’s lineup: @cgrand3 RF @ynscspds CF Murphy 1B #DavidWright 3B @mconforto8 LF d’Arnaud C Johnson 2B Tejada SS @MattHarvey33 P #Mets

— New York Mets (@Mets) September 2, 2015

.@AaronNola10 takes the bump for the #Phillies in the final game of the series vs the Mets. http://t.co/iV3ID4pkVO pic.twitter.com/kmOfQlq3S5 — Phillies (@Phillies) September 2, 2015

After getting skipped last time out – to of course limit his total number of 2015 innings – Matt Harvey will take the ball from Terry Collins. Harvey looks to keep his impressive string running of not allowing more than two earned runs in each of his last eight starts.

He’ll oppose Aaron Nola who hasn’t been a slouch himself. Both are No. 7 overall draft selections and will square off for the first time.

Harvey’s last outing came 11-days ago against Boston. This put him at the 160-inning mark on the season. Realizing that coming back from Tommy John surgery can be a delicate situation, the Mets organization announced today that they’ll likely skip Harvey twice more during the duration of the season.

This puts him in line to maybe start two more games after this one prior to the postseason.

Mets plan to skip Harvey again down stretch http://t.co/WHROcexBSG

— ESPN New York (@ESPNNewYork) September 2, 2015

Nobody likes the new era of baseball as it pertains to babying of the starting pitcher. To bring up pitch counts and innings limits is to allow an old-school baseball head to cringe.

Still, for Mets fans, it’s a much better situation than what we saw a few years back when Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo shut down Stephen Strasburg for the duration of the regular season and the postseason. The Nats had the best team that season and acted as though they’d be back every year thereafter.

Sandy Alderson, on the other hand, is executing this the smart way. The way that’ll allow long-term success to flourish while not losing that win now attitude.

First pitch from Citi Field will come shortly after 7:00 PM ET.