Mets Will 'Take A Look' At Skipping Matt Harvey's Next Start

Mets' righty Matt Harvey hit rock bottom Thursday night against the Washington Nationals, throwing the shortest outing of his career (2.2 innings) while allowing the most runs ever in a start (nine).

On that April night, this matchup of high-profile starters brought out the best in Harvey, and the hometown faithful rewarded him with that stirring chant.

As a result of his struggles, the Mets and manager Terry Collins says the team could look at skipping his next start to help re-focus his mind. That came while there was a feud between Harvey, his agent Scott Boras, and the Mets last season over an innings limit that he eventually blew past. Here are some of his postgame comments regarding Harvey's obvious difficulties on the mound... These ideas are all theories at this point, and at this point no one can clearly identify exactly what is wrong with Harvey or how it can be fixed. The Mets don't have a ton of great options if they deem Harvey isn't the choice to start on Tuesday in Washington.

"I think, as you're coming up in baseball, you need to get humbled, so you can learn how to fight through it. And we're trying to fight this fight with him", he said. Is that best for us? He went 0 for 4, striking out three times.

"I feel bad for him", Harper told reporters. I still believe in him. But Strasburg, whom the Nationals handled with care following his 2010 Tommy John surgery, was strong.

The return of Daniel Murphy to Citi Field got the headlines this week. Wilson Ramos drove in two more on a ground ball to left before Revere tripled in two more runs. Danny Espinosa singled. Strasburg grounded to third to move the runners to second and third with two outs. "You'd love to see Bryce hitting". He has yet to pitch beyond the sixth inning in nine starts this season and has pitched beyond the fifth just three times.

The most concerning part of Harper's comments are those about Harvey's velocity. The Mets have become increasingly concerned he's lost his way, especially after his heavy workload a year ago as they reached the World Series in his first season back from elbow surgery. I hadn't seen him struggle like this before. SNY analyst Nelson Figueroa noted on the postgame show that he thinks Harvey's issues are stemming from a lack of confidence.

"Right now, some stuff seems to be falling in for me", he said. "It's not that, it's not being able to execute pitches and not doing my job". The Mets are 5-2 in their last 7 during game 3 of a series and 3-7 in Harveys last 10 starts. But the sure-handed Asdrubal Cabrera lost the ball on the transfer and plated a run to make it 3-1. The National League MVP went just 1-for-9 here with four walks, yet the Nationals won the series and outscored the Mets in the process, 16-4.

Said Collins: "This was a tough one".