Matt Harvey returns, and looks phenomenal

Now in the spirit of following up some tough news about a great arm gone bad, there’s Matt Harvey who returned to his first in-game action since the 2013 regular season yesterday. The reviews were rave about his performance:

Harvey struck out three of the six Tigers he faced and he cracked the bats of two others. He was dominant. He comfortably threw his fastball 96 to 99 mph. His slider dived into the dirt, same as ever. Even his curveball, a reclamation project, was a knee-buckling filthy pitch. Nick Castellanos was the only Tigers hitter who saved even a little face against him. Castellanos should have received some kind of trophy for at least getting the ball out of the infield — though even that was just a lazy fly ball he lifted to right.

Harvey was so good when he blew away Tigers No. 4 hitter Jordan Lennerton on three straight pitches, it provoked an on-air laugh from former Mets pitcher Ron Darling, who was calling the game for SNY. Darling said poor Lennerton, who spent last year in Triple-A, was likely to get some good-natured kidding when he got back to the Detroit bench about forgetting to take the weighted doughnut off his bat before leaving the on-deck circle.

This is great to hear. It’s unfortunate that baseball had to exist at all without the rare talent of Matt Harvey. The early reports would seem to support that this guy is going to get back on track as a generational talent who defines his legacy with sparkling numbers on the back of his card.

And every fifth day, when you turn this guy on the television set; he’s going to be the same guy we came to remember. That’s good news for everyone except opposing hitters.