An agent being untruthful, where have we heard this before?
The Matt Harvey saga took yet another interesting turn with Dr. James Andrews stating he never demanded a 180-inning plateau as a hard cap for the Mets ace in his return from Tommy John surgery, according to Mike Vorkunov from NJ.com.
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Harvey's agent Scott Boras publicly railed against the Mets last month when he and New York general manager Sandy Alderson were at odds over an innings cap for Harvey, who is in his first season back from Tommy John surgery.
The Mets eased Harvey back by giving him 17 months to recover, skipping some of his outings and increasing his days off between starts, but a lot of controversy surrounded the team when Boras went public with his comments.
Mets had a conversation with Dr. James Andrews and Harvey and his camp a week ago. Andrews never said there was a 180 inning ceiling
— Mike Vorkunov (@Mike_Vorkunov) September 21, 2015
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"This is not a club's decision. This is a doctor's decision," Boras said earlier this month via CBS Sports. "Any club that chooses to defy a surgeon's wishes is putting the player in peril."
Alderson disagreed with what Boras said, but Harvey's representation said it "wasn't a negotiation," though Alderson insisted there was never a hard cap for Harvey, an assertion that was backed up by Dr. Andrews.
"For a guy to say to us on the 29th of August, '180 innings and then you're going to shut him down ...' don't call me seven months later and tell me you're pulling the rug out from under me, not after all we've done to protect the player," Alderson told CBS Sports earlier this month.
Harvey spoke publicly shortly after the panic emerged with the Mets locked in the middle of a pennant race and made comments that mirrored what Boras said. These remarks drew the ire of a lot of fans, who believed Harvey was protecting his financial future rather than helping his present team reach the playoffs for the first time in nine years.
Harvey has tried to backtrack from the statements, but Mets fans woke up frustrated once more Monday after the events of his last outing. The right-hander took the mound for the Mets against the rival Yankees in the rubber match of the Subway Series and limited the Bronx Bombers to one hit (infield single) while striking out seven in five innings.
With the Mets scrambling for a way to please the athlete, the doctor, the general manager, the agent and the fans, the club set in place a plan to give Harvey "half outings" to preserve him for a potential playoff run. Despite the fact that he was cruising through the Yankees lineup with relative ease and only threw 77 pitches, the Mets pulled Harvey after the fifth inning.
In the sixth, the Mets made a pair of errors and Hansel Robles gave up five runs to give the Yankees a 5-1 lead and the Bronx Bombers hammered the bullpen for six more runs, taking the game 11-2 in front of a national audience on ESPN "Sunday Night Baseball."
Now the drama continues with Dr. Andrews saying he never set a hard cap. With New York holding a six-game lead over Washington with 13 to play, every game is important with their magic number to clinch down to eight.
Harvey, 26, is 12-7 this season with a 2.80 ERA. Perhaps more importantly, he's pitched 176 2/3 innings.
Or maybe, as the doctor suggests, it's not that vital after all.
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