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DENVER — Matt Harvey is trying to learn something new. The Met right-hander has gone on the mound and thrown a baseball with ease and success most of his life. Now the 27-year-old is having to learn how to deal with and rebound from failure while doing it on the biggest of stages.
“I struggled a little bit my sophomore year in college, but it was pretty quick, it didn’t really last this long,” Harvey said Friday night. “It’s frustrating and taking a lot longer than expected.
“But you can’t give up, you just got to keep going.”
Friday night was another frustrating one. Harvey was outdueled by right-hander Jon Gray, who picked up his first career win in his 14th major league start as the Rockies beat the Mets 5-2 at Coors Field.
It was the Mets’ second straight loss and their third in their last five games. The Rockies (17-18) snapped an 11-game losing streak to the Mets (21-14) dating back to May 2014.
Gray held the Mets to two runs on five hits through seven innings. He walked one and struck out eight.
The Mets’ lineup, which has struggled this week, was pretty much shut down again Friday. Kevin Plawecki delivered a two-run double in the second inning but the Mets struck out 11 times and went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
The offense is in a mini-slump, but for Harvey this has gone on longer than he has ever struggled before.
Harvey matched a season-high by giving up five runs on a season-high 11 hits, the most he has given up since Aug. 24, 2013. He struck out six and did not walk a batter.
Colorado's Jon Gray picks up his first career win by out-dueling Harvey.
(Ron Chenoy/USA Today Sports)
“I am not very comfortable throwing the baseball right now. It’s frustrating,” Harvey said. “This is something I have done my whole life, go on the mound and throw a baseball, and right now it’s not an easy task.”
Harvey dropped to 3-5 with a 4.93 ERA.
His fastball sat in the 92- to 93-mph range and when he reached back it touched 95. He was still able to get 11 swing-and-misses by mixing up his pitches through the first four innings. He needed 57 pitches to get through those innings.
And then he started to struggle again.
“I thought early in the game, his command was very, very good,” Terry Collins said. “Later on, he left them on the plate, middle of the plate and you can’t do that here.”
Collins let Harvey work through the fourth — when the Rockies tied the game — and a jam in the fifth.
Gray picked up his first career hit to lead off the fifth inning and scored on Trevor Story’s double to left.
With Charlie Blackmon on third and Story on second, Harvey got a shallow pop-up from Carlos Gonzalez that he caught himself. He then got Nolan Arenado to line out to second base before Asdrubal Cabrera made a terrific play to scoop up Gerardo Parra’s ground ball and throw him out at first.
David Wright and the Mets offense can't take advantage of the notorious hitters park.
(David Zalubowski/AP)
But Harvey could not get through the sixth.
He gave up a one-out double to DJ LeMahieu and an RBI single to Tony Wolters. After striking out Gray, he was pulled for Jerry Blevins, who gave up an RBI-double to Charlie Blackmon.
“Certain pitches it’s fine,” Harvey said. “It’s progressively getting worse as the game goes on.”
While Collins talked about Harvey working on his mechanics and his release point, the pitcher shook his head and said there were “a lot of unknowns.
“From one start to the next, it doesn’t feel the same at all,” Harvey explained. “For me, it’s frustrating. It was not the ballpark or anything else. It’s me.”
And so Harvey is left searching for answers, a situation he has not been in too often.
“There are two kinds of players in this league: ones who have been humbled and the ones who will be,” Collins said. “When it’s your turn it gets tough to take sometimes, but you have to learn how to adjust and how to bounce back.”
It’s not so easy to do when on the big stage with the expectations that are on the Mets and Harvey.