NEW YORK -- He stomped toward the dugout, and whaddayaknow. All was forgiven.
Orange towels swirled. More than 44,000 people chanted his name. And finally, Scott Boras, Dr. James Andrews and 180 innings were no longer the first things these people thought of when the topic of the day was Matthew E. Harvey, the once and future ace of the New York Mets.
It was October. Matt Harvey was dealing. And that was all the occupants of Citi Field ever wanted. So we're sure they'll be delighted to learn that, according to the Dark Knight himself, it's all he ever wanted, too.
"I know there's been a lot of speculation or talks going around the past month," Harvey said Saturday night, after spinning 7⅔ innings of overpowering four-hit, nine-punchout brilliance in the Mets' 4-2 win over the Chicago Cubs in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. "But I kind of wanted to kind of stop all that."
Oh. So it was just "speculation," huh? Or "talk?" That's how he got himself into this mess. The world felt this sudden need to "speculate" about how, if he passed the magical 180-innings plateau, his elbow would turn to fettuccine or something?
Sorry, man. That's not quite how this came about. But whatever. We've been through all that. That was last month's news. The beautiful thing about baseball is that every night is an opportunity to turn the page. To something bigger. Something better. Something happier.
So Harvey did that Saturday night. He took the baseball. That was a step in the right direction in and of itself. And he's apparently prepared to take it again in this series, a development that even the Mets weren't so sure they'd live to see as recently as two weeks ago. Which is also a major step in the right direction.
But the lead to this story is what he did with that baseball once he held it in his hand, in maybe the most important game of his life.
There were the four perfect innings with which he started his night. Commanding all four unhittable pitches. Whiffing six of the 12 Cubs he faced. Setting himself up to get deep in this game by averaging only 11 pitches an inning. If you thought to yourself, "Holy crap, this guy has a chance to do a Don Larsen impression," you weren't alone.
"With his command, it was possible," said Harvey's catcher, Travis d'Arnaud. "Definitely."
But even though it never came to that, even though a Starlin Castro double ended Harvey's no-hitter and shutout in the fifth, even though a monster 463-foot eighth-inning homer by Kyle Schwarber ended his evening after 97 pitches, this was a big, big night for the man on the mound.
Those 7⅔ innings represented his longest outing in nine weeks (since Aug. 11). Those 97 pitches equaled the most he'd thrown since all that "speculation" busted out in early September. And that spectacular line in the box score joined him with Jacob deGrom in this year's NLDS and Dwight Gooden in the 1988 NLCS as the only Mets to go at least seven innings, strike out nine or more and give up no more than two runs in a postseason game since Tom Seaver unleashed a 12-strikeout masterpiece against Oakland in Game 3 of the 1973 World Series.
Now when a guy does anything for this franchise that leads to us typing his name in the same sentence as Tom Seaver's, you know he's had himself a pretty cool evening. But when you consider that it was just a few weeks ago that we were wondering if we'd see Matt Harvey on a mound in October at all, the impact of that evening gets doubly meaningful.
"I think anybody that had any doubts about his toughness, about his desire to go out and pitch, should take notice tonight," first baseman, Michael Cuddyer said. "The guy's a beast. The guy's an animal. And tonight, he proved it. He wanted to be out there. He had that look in his eye tonight that he was going to dominate. And he pitched unbelievable."
But Cuddyer is also honest enough to understand where those doubts came from. They didn't just waft out of the sky. They weren't manufactured by a single talk-radio host. They came from Harvey himself. So the only one who could extricate him from this mess was ... Harvey himself.
His first start in this postseason -- five innings, seven hits, three runs, two earned, in a Game 3 win over the Dodgers in the division series -- was just mediocre enough that he knew he'd left himself with more damage to repair. But this was the night the repairman showed up. And as those "Har-VEY, Har-VEY" chants grew louder by the inning, it was impossible not to get the message that was pouring out of those seats:
"Just keep doing what you're doing, pal -- and we're cool."
Asked if he'd ever doubted that these fans would never forgive this guy, Cuddyer acknowledged this was one New York soap opera that had a chance to linger -- unless the man in the middle of it did what he needed to do to prevent that.
"That was a tough situation," Cuddyer said. "Like I said, that time hurt him a little bit. Hurt his heart. Hurt him emotionally. So I think tonight, he went out there and proved who Matt Harvey was."
Well, if it did, his timing was excellent. With a Jake Arrieta start looming in Game 2 for the Mets, a Matt Harvey stinker would have been a disaster in more ways than one. But it never came to that. Never came close.
But even more important than the results was Harvey's clear determination to stay out there until they dragged him off the mound. He got smoked behind the right shoulder by a Jorge Soler laser beam in the seventh -- and wanted no part of coming out of this game. Then, after pitching out of two-on, one-out trouble in that inning and marching off the field to an earth-rattling standing ovation, he again waved off the chance to call it a night.
"This kid likes to compete," said his manager, Terry Collins. "Tonight, when I went to him between innings, I said, 'How you doing?' He said, 'I'm going back out. Let me go back out.' I said, 'Listen, if you're getting stiff, because [of getting nailed by that line drive], we're all set up.' He said, 'Terry, I'm fine. I feel great.' "
So out he went for the eighth -- to pitch his 202nd inning of this season. And if the Mets get to the World Series, he could eventually blow by 220 innings. You don't need to be a math major at Columbia to know that's a lot bigger number than 180. But this isn't a time for numbers. It's a time for winning. And Matt Harvey is on board.
"He's the type of guy," David Wright said, "that when you get a nationally televised game, you get a Saturday night in New York, when you give him that type of stage, I think his expectations go up, and his mindset is he wants to go out there and show off a little bit. And that's what you want out of one of your aces, is a guy that enjoys that atmosphere and enjoys that stage."
Behind the scenes, the Mets always had the feeling once Harvey got a taste of that October stage, he'd relish every moment he got to set foot on it. They just had to navigate their way through an unnecessary and uncomfortable crisis, not of their making, to get to this point.
But now they're here. And so is the Dark Knight, fully locked, fully loaded. And on an electrifying Saturday evening in October, on the most important night he has ever spent on a pitcher's mound, he reminded us why we cared so much about his story in the first place.