Where Does Matt Harvey Go from Here?

Matt Harvey is the talk of the town in New York City lately, which is almost never a good thing for someone who plays for the Mets.

Harvey had bucked that trend for two great seasons. The first, in 2013, ended early in an arm injury requiring Tommy John surgery (Harvey was so good that he still finished fourth in National League Cy Young voting). The second, in 2015, ended a few batters later than it should have in the World Series. Mets fans won't remember that last bit fondly, but Harvey was valiant to the point of legitimate heroism through all of it. There's no shame in any of that.

There is, though, inarguably at least a little bit of shame in getting routed off the mound in three straight starts, and that's where Harvey, who is ostensibly healthy and yet pitching worse than he ever has in his professional career, sits today. It is an ugly place to be, and Harvey didn't help his case by avoiding reporters after he served up some thermonuclear bombs in a 7-4 loss to the Washington Nationals on Tuesday.

The basic facts are these: when you're a starting pitcher in the major leagues, you're expected to give the guys in the press pool three to five minutes of red meat following your start, no matter how it goes. It's stupid, sure, but you've got to do it. Because if you don't do it, someone else has to—in Harvey's case, it was catcher Kevin Plawecki—and while the press pool guys will laud that player after the fact for taking one for the team, they will still make those three-to-five minutes unpleasant for him. If you're the pitcher who bails, the next day's stories will be even worse, and Harvey, predictably, has been shredded by the tabloids.

That said, we're here to talk about Harvey himself, and what's wrong with his pitching. Mets pitching coach Dan Warthen recently thought that he had identified and corrected a flaw in Harvey's delivery, but that clearly wasn't the case; it rarely is, in the case of these "mechanical flaws" offered up to the media like sacrificial lambs. The problems with Matt Harvey are:

• The velocity on his fastball is down across the board, regardless of inning or circumstance.
• His breaking pitches, especially his slider, don't have the bite they had in 2013 or most of 2015.
• The velocity on his fastball flags noticeably after his first time through the lineup.
• So does his command on all his pitches.

All of which adds up to a simple and brutal conclusion: Matt Harvey looks almost permanently gassed.

Stamina issues are not, generally speaking, solved by simple, slight mechanical tweaks. They're conditioning issues, and if mechanical problems are involved, solving them requires a fundamental breakdown of a pitcher's entire motion. They certainly can be injury-related, but that doesn't mean Harvey's injured. The Mets could send him to the DL with arm fatigue, although they seem disinclined to do so at the moment, but it's clear that Harvey does not actually believe he's hurt. More to the point, if there were actual physiological backing for an injury diagnosis rather than a general "you somehow suck now, sorry" DL trip, the Mets likely would have availed themselves of the opportunity two starts ago rather than send Harvey out there to get filleted by the Nationals.

That Harvey's problems are grounded in stamina issues points to two possible conclusions. The first is the one the media love to harp on: that his inability to get more than once through the lineup without problem is a sign of dissolute living and improper focus on The Game. And that is fair enough, with the caveat that absolutely none of the people giving that diagnosis have remotely the information needed to justify it. The only people who know whether Harvey has a proper work-life balance are Harvey and maybe the people closest to him, inside the clubhouse and out, and taking their word on anything, even as "anonymous sources," is dicey.

The second specter is this: maybe Harvey is already doing exactly what is necessary to prepare to win, but his arm and body have already hit the point where a major league starter's workload is too much. That's the darkest scenario because it suggests the problem isn't a correctable lifestyle choice—enough with the clubs, go paleo, et cetera—but more the superhuman demands of being a starting pitcher in major leagues. That is, the problem is mortality, for which no training or recovery regimen or lifestyle change can correct. Mortality promises precisely one change of scenery. Mortality is non-negotiable.

If the Mets believe it's the latter, they'll likely look to get rid of Harvey while he still has some value. And if they do, they could still be wrong. Sometimes there are second acts in baseball careers. Men such as his teammate Bartolo Colon have turned the clock back before, by hook and by crook, and not everyone recovers from Tommy John—or recovers from the recovery from Tommy John—in the same way or at the same pace.

Perhaps, somehow, Harvey will find his stride and turn everything around. Perhaps it would be stupid to rule this out, because Harvey is as stubborn and as driven and as great as any pitcher who has done what Harvey has done. Perhaps this doesn't end like some twisted baseball version of Flowers of Algernon, with Harvey able to see the drop coming. Perhaps it already has.