Mets plan to pitch Matt Harvey into playoffs
— -- MIAMI -- The New York Mets intend to proceed with their innings plan for Matt Harvey that would allow him to pitch into the postseason, ignoring a stricter cap that agent Scott Boras advocated and would lead to a shutdown, team sources told ESPN.
Harvey has pitched 166? innings in his first season back from Tommy John surgery. The Mets skipped a start on Aug. 23 to conserve innings. They plan to skip another start this month and go to a six-man rotation to further shave Harvey's regular-season innings total, sources said.
That plan would appear to give Harvey as many as four more regular-season starts. A source told ESPN's Britt McHenry that Harvey will pitch Tuesday against the Washington Nationals.
On Friday, Boras portrayed Harvey's innings cap to media outlets as strict at 180. He suggested the Mets' exceeding that total would be in defiance of doctors' mandates and would imperil Harvey's future health.
"It should be the doctor's decision because it is about the well-being of the patient," Boras said. "They are obviously putting the player in peril. That's their decision. That's what they chose to do."
Dr. James Andrews, who performed Harvey's Tommy John surgery on Oct. 22, 2013, has recommended Harvey throw no more than 180 innings this season. Another expert, Los Angeles Dodgers team doctor Neal ElAttrache, has recommended a cap of 165 to Boras.
"Everyone in the dynamic agreed there are [innings] limits," Boras said, adding that he first contacted the Mets when Harvey reached 140 innings.
Since spring training, Mets officials unequivocally have suggested that they would manage Harvey's regular-season innings in a way that would preserve his postseason availability and avoid a situation like the Nationals' 2012 shutdown of Stephen Strasburg, who did not pitch after Sept. 7. Minus Strasburg, the Nationals were bounced in the National League Division Series by the St. Louis Cardinals.
New York enters the weekend with a six-game lead on Washington for first place in the NL East.
The Mets and Boras were aligned two years ago in persuading Harvey to undergo Tommy John surgery at a time when the ace was pondering rehab over the procedure. The team and Boras similarly were on the same page last season when Harvey was eager to return in September, less than 12 months after undergoing the ligament-replacement procedure, and persuaded him to wait until 2015 to rejoin the Mets.
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