Harvey the goat

If I was the editor of a New York tabloid sports page today, the headline would be “Harvey’s Ego Costs Mets World Series.”

Maybe that’s unfair.  Maybe it wasn’t exactly ego.  Maybe it was adrenaline.  Or hubris.  Or a well-intentioned desire to help his teammates.  Whatever it was, it was stupid and now the season is over for the Mets.

Some have defended the decision to leave Matt Harvey in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the World Series, but by any logical, rational calculus, the move was wrong.  It’s wrong to say it cost the Mets the series, because at 3-1 down and the Series heading back to Kansas City, even if they had won their odds of winning were not good.  But what it cost the Mets was the chance to get the Series back into the hands of Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard.

What I am saying is unfair, to the extent that in the situation the Mets found themselves in of course Matt Harvey, the player, is going to want to stay in the game.  I seem to recall a story about an NBA player who received a concussion and was blind and insisted he could still play.  But it was up to manager Terry Collins to be the rational adult and tell him no.  Collins made the decision to pull Harvey, but then relented when Harvey said there was “no way” he was coming out.  In 1986 John MacNamara left veteran Bill Buckner on the field in the ninth inning, using his heart not his head, and it cost the Red Sox the Series.  Another Red Sox manager, Grady Little, inexplicably left Pedro Martinez for an inning too long of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS and the result was a catastrophe.

But it is much more fun to blame Harvey.

There was no upside to leaving Harvey in.  The Mets’ closer did not need a day off.  The psychological bump would have been dissipated by a day off and the next two games being in Kansas City.  Would Matt Harvey leave as a free agent when he got the chance because he wasn’t allowed to finish the game?  Doubtful.

The downside was a tired Harvey (who had thrown only one complete game in his entire career) blowing a slim two run lead that the closer would have been more likely to preserve.  The downside was Harvey, who had been on a notorious innings limit all season, re-injuring his arm.  No upside; huge downside.  Easy decision.

This sort of ties into a theme I kept hearing over and over from the Fox announcers that was patently hogwash.  They kept saying, “This Royals team finds a way to win.”  That’s like anthropomorphizing a fight between a mongoose and a cobra by saying the mongoose was looking for an opening.  Teams are a collection of human beings, they no more think collectively than animals following centuries of instinct plan battle tactics.  The Royals do not “find a way to win” they simply win, and the fact that they do it in a variety of ways is meaningless.

But the thing is we like the narrative.  We accept the narrative. We like the idea of a team forming a single brain and coming up with a plan for scoring more runs, when in fact all they are doing is scoring more runs because they get hits.  Teams do not “find a way to win.”  They win or they lose.

The narrative Matt Harvey wanted to believe in was the savior, the heroic athlete overcoming fatigue and physical strain and being triumphant.  It’s a nice narrative.  Sometimes it works (Jack Morris in the 1991 World Series, pitching a 10 inning shutout).  Sometimes it doesn’t (see Pedro Martinez in the 2003 ALCS, referenced above).  But people believe in the narrative and believe it is fate, and therefore it is okay to make an irrational decision.  Because, you know, fate!

Manager Terry Collins should have told Matt Harvey thanks for the last eight innings, but you are done for the season.  Unfortunately 40,000 fans were chanting Harvey’s name, and Collins listened to them instead of his brain.  40,000 people are not smarter than one man with years of experience.  But he listened to them and became as dumb as them.

Of course, Mets closer Jeurys Familia DID blow the one run lead in the ninth, so there is no guarantee bringing him to start the ninth would have sealed the deal.  But it was the smart thing to do.

The Mets always have the Cubs’ ancient motto: wait ‘til next year.