Bad news for Jeremy Hefner could mean a longer wait for Matt Harvey.
General manager Sandy Alderson said in part because of Hefner’s latest elbow injury as he tried to come back from Tommy John surgery, Harvey might not pitch in a game until spring training — and almost certainly not for the Mets in 2014.
“I don’t think so,” Alderson said of Harvey appearing in a game with the Mets this season, something the right-hander repeatedly has professed a desire to do. “I haven’t thought so and I don’t at this point.”
He also didn’t rule out the possibility of Harvey not pitching until February.
“That’s possible,” Alderson said before the Mets’ 7-1 loss to the Nationals. “Matt has always wanted to pitch a major league game before the end of the season. That has never been our goal … but we want to make sure Matt or anyone in that situation feels good about himself going into the next season.”
That may not include the Arizona Fall League or the instructional league, according to Alderson.
“It’s conceivable Matt will feel fine saying, ‘I’m just going to throw bullpens the rest of the year and I’ll see you in Port St. Lucie,’ ” Alderson said.
There has been some tension between Harvey and the team at various times during his rehab process, and Alderson made it clear there was a lesson to be learned from Hefner’s misfortune.
“His is a cautionary story for others, including Matt Harvey, I think,” Alderson said. “So while Jeremy’s recurrence is unusual, it points out those kinds of things can happen. If nothing else, what may come out of it is that others — including Matt — be a little more careful about how aggressive they become in there rehabilitation.”
Harvey is in the early stages of a throwing program, throwing off a slope in Port St. Lucie, so no immediate changes need to be made in what he’s doing — but the entire process could be altered.
“We’re going to have a discussion with the doctors about whether the protocol should change for Matt,” Alderson said.
The organization has to wrestle with what it thinks is best for Harvey’s elbow without also making him less aggressive.
“He may end up in a different situation physically for him, but hopefully in the same position mentally,” Alderson said. “That is, he’s ready to go in 2015, regardless of what he’s able to accomplish through the end of this season.”
Now that the right-hander is throwing off a slope, he could be kept in that phase for the foreseeable future instead of eventually progressing to game action.
The next step would be throwing a bullpen session, followed by live batting practice.
“The question is whether we truncate that in some way into just throwing bullpens the rest of the season,” Alderson said. “We may throw something else in there. That’s stuff we’ll consider over the next week or so.”
Though the Mets know well Harvey’s personality, Alderson believes he is “reassessing” his situation.
“Matt is a very smart guy,” Alderson said. “He tends to be very intense about everything, including rehab, but I think he is constantly reassessing based on new information … on how he feels and the nature of his injury in other cases. My sense is that Matt will at least take this into account, as we are.”
But it is apparent with Hefner’s setback there is no magic formula in the rehab.
“It wasn’t overly aggressive,” Alderson said of Hefner’s protocol. “I think what ended up happening is when he transitioned from bullpen and live batting practice to games, he experienced a problem. And that may be a period of transition, it’s possible in other cases to experience the same problem.”