Matt Harvey’s 18 months away from the mound has done nothing to suppress Ron Darling’s expectations.
The Mets fireballer makes his much-anticipated return to live action on Friday against the Tigers and is expected to throw 35-40 pitches after missing the 2014 season following Tommy John surgery.
“I expect pure dominance and excellence. I expect him to be the righty [Clayton] Kershaw, and if I didn’t expect it, I wouldn’t want to watch the games,” said Darling, the SNY analyst and former Mets pitcher. “That’s how excited I get when I know he’s out there. That’s a lot of pressure to put on him, but that’s how it goes.”
In Harvey’s absence, the Mets found another potential ace in Jacob deGrom, who was the NL Rookie of the Year last season, and Zack Wheeler continued his steady improvement. The staff also boasts solid veterans in Bartolo Colon and Jonathon Niese.
Darling said he expects Harvey not only to return to ace form, but also to help by deflecting attention from the other starters.
“I know it made a big difference in [Tom] Seaver’s time that the other guys were able to walk softly,” Darling said. “It certainly helped in my time when Doc [Gooden] was there. Two things happen: One, you’re under the radar, and [two], you always aspire to be as good as he was.
“All of those things are good. Then you look deeper into the personalities and Wheeler, Niese, deGrom, [Dillon] Gee, Colon, they prefer the shadows, to me that’s their personality. It is the perfect storm of great things that can happen.
“Will it happen? I don’t know. The Mets had Generation K, which was supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. The reason I think this is the different, if one falters, you have a [Steven] Matz, who I think will be up from the minors. You got a [Noah] Syndergaard, you got a [Rafael] Montero. That leads to sustained excellence and doesn’t allow any of the other pitchers to rest on their laurels. They’ll either continue to excel or they’ll be replaced. That’s just the nature of the beast.”
To that point, the Mets will encounter a rare thing in their recent history: an embarrassment of riches. They currently have six starters before you even get to the young studs who will start the season in the minor leagues. Darling has a solution, though not one he expects the team to follow.
“I think this might be the one time a six-man rotation works,” he said. “Harvey has 25-26 starts that way. Colon, who is an older pitcher, has strength in September. Wheeler has the ability in between starts to work on his command, which is getting better and better. Niese, who has shown a tendency to be a little fragile physically, has a chance to regroup. Gee, who does not belong in the bullpen, will get his chance every single time he went out. DeGrom, who seems to get the stronger as the game goes on, can stay in for 120 pitches. … For the first time in my entire broadcasting and playing career, it would be a really interesting revision of baseball history if the Mets were the first ones to do it.”