Having placed the pinstriped bodies in the casket, Matt Harvey wanted to drop the top, lower the box into the ground and throw dirt on it.
“Just let me have him,’’ Harvey said to Terry Collins when the Mets’ manager arrived on the mound with two outs in the ninth, Chris Young coming to the plate and the visitors comfortably ahead of the Yankees.
First, Harvey dominated the Yankee hitters. Now, he wanted to bury them.
Before the Mets’ 8-2 victory in front of 47,909 at Yankee Stadium that evened the Subway Series at 1-1, Collins used 105 pitches as Harvey’s limit. Following a four-pitch walk to Brian McCann that put two Yankees on base and raised Harvey’s pitch count to 107, Collins hooked his ace.
“We needed a big game and he responded like we thought he would,’’ Collins said of Harvey, who gave up two runs, five hits, fanned seven and pushed the speed guns to 98 mph in the ninth in his Stadium debut. Harvey is 4-0 with a 3.04 ERA.
“When you get that close to it, I think you want to finish it but I think [Collins] made the right call,’’ Harvey said. “Whatever gets us the win, that’s good management.’’
A fair amount of intrigue surrounded Harvey facing Alex Rodriguez for the first time and it wasn’t a fair fight. Rodriguez, who is in a 3-for-24 slide, went 0-for-4 and whiffed twice.
“That’s always fun, well, not too fun, to see a young pitcher come up. He is awesome,’’ Rodriguez said of Harvey. “He threw 98 mph right by me.’’
CC Sabathia against the Mets’ hitters was also an overmatched situation.
Coming off his best start of the season in Detroit, Sabathia lasted into the sixth, but gave up seven runs and nine hits. Three of the hits were homers by Lucas Duda, Kevin Plawecki and Eric Campbell.
“I couldn’t finish my pitches,’’ said Sabathia, who is 0-4 with a 5.96 ERA in four starts. “I didn’t give us a chance to win at all.’’
Because the Mets’ 11-game win streak was snapped Friday night, Harvey understood the urgency to not let the fire die.
“The big thing for me was to try and start a new one. I knew there was going to be a lot of hype,’’ Harvey said. “The biggest thing was the run support and being able to throw my curveball for a strike.’’
Harvey’s only challenge surfaced in the third when Stephen Drew doubled high off the wall in right-center and Didi Gregorius reached on what was supposed to be a sacrifice bunt but turned into a hit when Daniel Murphy was late covering first base.
With runners at the corners and no out, Harvey traded a run that tied the score, 1-1, for two outs by getting Jacoby Ellsbury to bang into a 4-6-3 double play. After that, Harvey didn’t face a batter with a runner in scoring position.
Tied, 1-1, in the fourth, the Mets scored four runs off Sabathia with the big blow Plawecki’s first big league homer, a two-run drive to left that gave the Mets a 5-1 lead. Campbell homered in the sixth when Esmil Rogers uncorked two wild pitches for another run. Plawecki drove in the final run with a single in the eighth.
The bottom third of the Mets’ order — Juan Lagares, Wilmer Flores and Plawecki — went 8-for-12, drove in five runs and scored five.
Collins understands it’s only late April, but he also knew the importance of bouncing back after the streak ended Friday night.
“We had a great homestand and people are saying the teams we played aren’t very good. This team is a good team and we think we have a good team,’’ Collins said. “Today, with our best pitcher was huge for us and I thought the game was very important to win.’’
As well as relatively easy.