Why Matt Harvey Could Be Late-Season X-Factor If New York Mets Stay in the Race

The New York Mets have been in desperate need of a No. 5 starter since Mike Pelfrey went down and is now in need of Tommy John surgery.

Since Pelfrey's injury we've seen a merry-go-round of sub-Major League Baseball talent try to fill in, as manager Terry Collins hopes and prays Chris Young can make a speedy recovery.

Option one was the great Chris Schwinden, who was immediately figured out by the Colorado Rockies and Houston Astros, resulting in an 11.25 ERA over two starts. Option two was Miguel Batista, who promptly realized he was 41 years old and is now on the disabled list.  Option three was Jeremy Hefner, who didn't end in total failure, but you can see where the trend is taking us.

Young underwent the same anterior capsule surgery last May that Johan Santana did. Remember how long that surgery kept Santana out? Yeah, I remember, too.

The Mets are not going to be able to stay relevant for much longer unless Collins and GM Sandy Alderson have a little pow-wow and make the decision to bring up none other than the No. 7 overall pick in 2010, Matt Harvey.

This year at Buffalo, Harvey is 4-1 with a not-so-impressive 4.31 ERA over nine starts and 48 innings. The ERA is a bit concerning, but he has struck out 49 batters this season, which makes for an impressive strikeouts-per-nine-innings ratio.

However, he improved on those numbers in his most recent start, striking out a career-high 11 batters while allowing three runs through six innings. Not exactly Cy Young material, but two of those runs came on solo shots in the opening frame and Harvey settled down from there on out.

According to Matthew Cerrone of MetsBlog.com, word coming from the minor-league camp brings good news. Harvey has done a better job at keeping the ball low as of late and using his off-speed stuff to keep hitters from getting a beat on his excellent fastball. Cerrone also said we aren't likely to see him until at least late June, but I think it will be later than that. Sometime in July seems more reasonable to me—or at least this thing I like to call "Mets Reasonable," meaning the Metsies always seem to get around to things later than they should have.

Harvey is definitely major-league talent but his inconsistency is bothersome; however, that's commonplace among young, inexperienced starters and he'll establish his identity more when he begins to grow as a pitcher.

We're almost at the end of May and the Mets are sitting tied for third with the Miami Marlins. Haven't the fans and media alike expected that Harvey would be brought up if the Mets were competitive towards the middle of the season?

Collins has the team at 24-20 despite injuries to Ruben Tejada and Josh Thole. On top of that, Ike Davis couldn't hit his way out of a paper bag, but he did go 1-for-4 yesterday, to raise his average to .159. Lucas Duda has finally begun to piece together some good at-bats and Kirk Nieuwenhuis has been a huge bright spot in Flushing thus far.

I've been saying it since March, and I'll keep saying it: This team is good. Not only are they good, they're a special group of young guys with a desire to prove doubters wrong and turn this season into something exciting.

As for the regulars in the current pitching staff, Johan Santana got off to a great start but has since plateaued, posting a 4.25 ERA in May. His ERA still sits at a very respectable 3.24 for the season, and there's no reason to worry about a seasoned veteran like him, especially one that has two Cy Young awards sitting on his mantle.

R.A. Dickey has been nothing short of spectacular this season, with the exception of his one start against the Atlanta Braves, when he couldn't get his knuckleball right because of the rain. Other than that one outing, he's made quality starts every time he's taken the mound to the tune of a 6-1 record.

Jonathon Niese had two bad outings against the Astros and the Toronto Blue Jays, in which he allowed 13 runs in six innings. He's also shown flashes of brilliance, though, most recently yesterday afternoon in his 7.2-inning, one-earned-run showing against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Now to Dillon Gee. What are we to make of the pitching enigma that Gee is? Yes, he's a No. 4 starter, so he's not going to light up the box score, but a 5.44 ERA almost two months in isn't going to cut it. However, Gee has shown more than his ERA gives him credit for and we'll see that number dip into the mid-fours before the season is through.

That leaves a hole in the No. 5 spot. A big, gaping black hole of an abyss at the very back end of the Mets' rotation. For those who don't think Harvey could come up to the bigs and immediately be more effective than Schwinden, Batista or Hefner, I say to you, wake up.

Josh Thole knows it. He gushed about it during spring training, and said this:

"

The heaviness, the electric-ness on his ball. He was throwing all of his pitches for strikes...Heavy, like it pops the mitt hard. It’s like a bowling ball, so when you hit it, it feels different hitting it on your bat..The sink on it was pretty impressive. The breaking ball, the last one he threw to me started on my hip. I jumped out of the way and it was down the middle. You don’t see that on an everyday basis, especially for a guy who hasn’t pitched in the big leagues yet.

"

Thole obviously isn't the go-to source on major-league pitching talent, but he's a major-league catcher and knows what he's talking about. There's no reason to praise a rookie like that to give him false confidence if he doesn't actually have the stuff he's talking about.

Ike Davis also talked about how smooth Harvey's mechanics are, as well as how good his curveball is. While Davis may be giving too much credit, seeing as he can't hit a curveball to save his life, it's still comforting to hear a hitter talk that way about him.

If Harvey is called up sometime during the dog days of the summer, he will definitely be an X-factor for the Mets in the second half of the season. Not just because of his talent, but because he'll be a fresh arm in the organization when many other pitchers around the league are dealing with sore or dead arms.

I'm not expecting him to be called up and strike out 14 batters in his first start, Stephen Strasburg style, because who expected even Strasburg to do what he did in his debut?

When he gets called up, he'll be watched like a hawk by Collins and the front office to make sure he's not being overworked. A reasonable expectation for him would be something in the realm of six to seven innings and two to three earned runs on a slightly-above-average night.

He's already 23 years old and slowly approaching the time when he's either going to be ready or he's not. He has unparalleled confidence for a young pitcher and throwing him straight into the fire would be the best experience as a player for him. He's going to be up for the challenge when he is brought up, and it's going to pay huge dividends for the Mets.

When he was drafted, he was expected to have a much higher upside than a No. 5 starter, and the only way to find out if that was an accurate estimation is to bring him up and give him a chance.

If it doesn't turn out so well right off the bat, you give the kid some time to learn the major-league hitters he is facing and tailor his game to fit those needs. And if there are positives to take out of his first start, and he comes in and shuts down the opposition right away, we could be witness to something special.

And I'm not talking about just something special like a moral, sentimental victory; I'm talking about a meaningful push towards the playoffs in which Matt Harvey comes out every fifth day and puts the Mets in a better position to win than any of these stand-in No. 5 starters are capable of doing.