A Hopeful Matt Harvey Wants to Pitch This Year

Mets Star Dreams of a Pennant Race He Can Pitch In

The Wall Street Journal—January 23, 2014

Matt Harvey knows the deal. No matter how well his recovery from Tommy John Surgery is going—and it is going well, he says, as far ahead of schedule as he can push it—the Mets probably aren't going to let him pitch this season.

But that can't stop him from hoping.

So far, so good. Harvey says he has progressed from rehabbing his arm to regular upper-body workouts, and he hopes to begin playing catch by the end of February. He believes he is going as fast, and doing as well, as the rehab schedule allows. He says he has felt no pain, that there have been no setbacks, and that his rehab coordinator at Hospital for Special Surgery has had to slow the recovery timetable for its own sake.

"He says, 'I don't really know what to do—you're just moving on so quickly that we sometimes have to pump the brakes,'" Harvey said. "We can't go full throttle. But everything feels so good that it's becoming a little boring, that I'm ready to go and get ready for spring training."

This story originally appeared at wsj.com.