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It's September 8, 2012 and the Washington Nationals are sitting comfortably in first place of the National League East. A potential World Series favorite, the Nats have young arms in the rotation and a potent lineup that features rookie centerfielder Bryce Harper. In the rotation, the headliner is Stephen Strasburg, a hard-throwing lefty you may have heard of who owns 15 wins on the season.
Strasburg is pitching in his first full season since undergoing Tommy John surgery and the Washington management has placed an innings limit of roughly 160 innings on him. After relenting five runs in three innings the night before, which brought him to 159 1/3 innings for the season, the Nats decided to shut down Strasburg for the season with 24 games remaining.
Washington was home to postseason baseball for the first time since 1933 as the Nationals held off the Braves to win the NL East. Without Strasburg, the Nats headed to the National League Division Series to face the reigning World Series champions: the St. Louis Cardinals. With the series tied at two, the series finale was held in Washington. The Nationals had the series in the bag heading into the top of the ninth, leading 7-5. However, St. Louis plated four runs and went on to win the game, sending the Nationals home earlier than expected.
Was Strasburg's season-ending shutdown to blame for the Nationals' failure? Perhaps. Washington entered the postseason without one of its top pitchers and pitching wins in the postseason.
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We're back in 2015 now and the New York Mets recently dominated the sports talk shows with the possibility that Matt Harvey could be shut down for the rest of the season before the playoffs started. Harvey is currently 13-8 with a 2.71 ERA this season and has gone 2-0 with 16 strikeouts in 12 2/3 innings this postseason.
The Mets are making their first trip to the World Series since 2000 and are hoping to win it all for the first time since 1986. Harvey, like Strasburg, is pitching in his first season since Tommy John surgery and also like Strasburg, is young and considered a key piece to the future success of his club.
But despite agent Scott Boras' loudest complaints and threats, New York decided to ignore the innings limit that was set on Harvey at the beginning of the season and use him in the playoffs. Harvey was told he shouldn't pitch over 180 innings this season, but he currently sits at 202 with the World Series looming. It's unclear whether or not he will pitch in the World Series yet (he was scheduled to start Game 5 of the NLCS), but the Mets made the right decision in pitching him this postseason.
Let's forget this innings limit argument for a second and really consider what that means. Matt Harvey was supposed to only pitch 180 innings. Let's say one inning he goes out and throws a three-pitch inning and the next frame it takes him 33 pitches to record three outs. Clearly, an inning is not a true judge of the labor put on Harvey's arm. If doctors and teams want to use a figure to judge usage then may I suggest using pitches thrown.
The reality is this: teams and athletes play sports to win. Sure, the Mets or Nationals would not want to lose a young pitcher for the rest of his career by pitching him too much, but what is pitching too much? It seems that nobody has truly figured that out yet.
The Mets needed Matt Harvey to get to the point they're at now and they will need him to beat either the Royals or Blue Jays in the World Series. The opportunity to win a World Series may not come again for a long time so why waste it? People thought the Nationals would be in the World Series year after year, but they have not won a postseason series with Strasburg on the roster. The opportunity has never presented itself again. Maybe it would have in 2012 if Strasburg had been allowed to pitch in the postseason.
Maybe the opportunity would not have been here for the Mets in 2015 if Harvey was watching every game from the dugout. In sports, the chance to win a championship does not present itself often. The Mets knew they were a quality team, but they didn't know that Daniel Murphy was going to hit a home run in seven-straight games. They didn't know that they would be able to beat Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester. They didn't know the pitching staff could quiet a young Cubs offense that was on fire coming into the NLCS.
All they knew going into the postseason was that they needed their best lineup to win the World Series.
And pitching Matt Harvey gives them the best chance to do just that.
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