Matt Harvey Returns to Citi Field, ‘I Was Holding Back Tears’

It probably wasn’t how Matt Harvey envisioned pitching at Citi Field in the year 2021.

A member of the rebuilding Baltimore Orioles after signing a minor league deal that offseason. His fourth club in as many years. Trying to just take it game by game.

In the middle portion of last decade, the sky was the limit for Harvey, who was endearingly referred to as the “Dark Knight.”

Every fifth day he took to the mound it was a holiday for Mets fans, similar to what the team experiences with Jacob deGrom in present day.

Only with Harvey, it was different. The first round pick reached the big leagues after being drafted by the Mets in the first round of the 2010 draft.

There wasn’t much to get excited about, except the future, with those 2012 Mets. Sure, R.A. Dickey winded up capturing the Cy Young and Johan Santana tossed the first no-hitter in franchise history, but Dickey was a journeyman knuckleballer that the team caught lightning in a bottle with, and Santana’s no-no was ultimately his swan song as a Metropolitan.

Harvey’s call up signaled a new era in Queens, and he would mark the first of many young flamethrowers to grace the team’s rotation in the coming years.

Zack Wheeler was next. Followed by deGrom. Then Noah Syndergaard and finally Steven Matz, as the team culminated with a World Series appearance in 2015.

Though, it certainly didn’t come without hiccups.

Harvey underwent Tommy John surgery and missed the entirety of the 2014 season. The right-hander came back strong to the tune of a 2.70 ERA in the 2015 season and pitched Game 5 of the 2015 World Series — a game that is often discussed among fans nearly six years later.

Harvey put it all on the line that season coming back from Tommy John and exceeded all expectations by throwing nearly 200 regular season innings.

In that Game 5, Harvey spun a gem. The Mets were up 2-0 through eight innings, and when he battled to go back out for the ninth inning, manager Terry Collins obliged.

The Kansas City Royals tied the game and went on to win 7-2 by putting up a five-spot in the 12th inning.

When Harvey departed that game, fans didn’t know it yet, but it would be the last time they saw the Dark Knight in full force in a Mets uniform.

The Connecticut native suffered thoracic outlet syndrome the next season, not a death sentence for pitchers, but pretty damn close. He went under the knife for a second time in the span of three years.

When he returned in 2017, Harvey was a shell of himself. One of the most dominant starters in the league logged a 6.70 ERA in 19 games. The next year, he was out of New York altogether. The Mets traded him to the Cincinnati Reds for catcher Devin Mesoraco in a struggling player swap.

Since then, Harvey has pitched for the Los Angeles Angels, the Oakland Athletics’ Triple-A team, the Kansas City Royals and now the O’s.

Harvey sure isn’t the pitcher he once was, but coming into Wednesday afternoon, he had been Baltimore’s second most reliable pitcher behind John Means, with a respectable 3.60 ERA.

When he took the hill against the Amazin’s on a bright May afternoon on Wednesday, Harvey was met with a standing ovation from the roughly nine thousand fans in the ballpark.

Sure, you still have fans who claim Harvey was “selfish.” He partied. He dated supermodels. He shirked team responsibilities and obligations.

He was also young, and made mistakes. It doesn’t take away from the fact that he underwent two major arm surgeries, and his perseverance has allowed him to mature and reinvent himself to remain at the highest level baseball has to offer.

Regardless, fans remembered the good on Wednesday in Harvey’s first game played against the Mets since being traded three years ago.

“There was a lot of excitement, a lot of memories,” Harvey said after the game. “Obviously there’s been so many ups and downs here in this ballpark and in this organization. I didn’t really know what to expect and what they gave me, what the fans gave me, was pretty incredible.

“I was holding back tears. I’m not going to lie about that. It was pretty hard holding them back. It reminded me of, really, a lot of the good memories.”

Harvey wasn’t greeted as warmly by his opposition, who roughed him up to the tune of seven runs that made his ERA jump to 4.81 on the campaign, but it was still a monumental experience for Harvey.

“Coming off the field with an ovation like that, it brought a lot back and it was very special to me,” Harvey said fondly. “Something I’ll never forget.

“It was hard. This is a very special place to me. I’d like to say I gave everything I had here. Especially in that 2015 run, it was really something special. I left it all out there for everybody — for our fans, for the teammates. That was a big year for us as a team and for the city of New York. Those memories definitely came in when I got some cheers and got the standing ovation.”

That rotation with the “five aces” ended up being more like Generation K of yesteryear, and only deGrom and Syndergaard remain in New York several years later. Harvey is in Baltimore. Wheeler is in Philadelphia and Matz is in Toronto.

It’s not how they drew it up, but the Mets are sitting at a cool 18-13, riding a seven-game win streak and their pitching, made up mostly of newer faces since their World Series run, has the second-best ERA in baseball.

For Harvey though, he brings a veteran presence to a young Baltimore team. He might not be the ace he once was, but he’s fought to be back in the bigs and his maturity as a now 32-year-old still brings a lot to the table.

Hopefully, the Dark Knight has a little left in the tank to rise again.

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