There is nothing, perhaps, that enraptures a baseball crowd like a hard-throwing pitcher. It is like watching a man at a carnival, shirt sleeves rolled up, three balls on the table, trying to impress everyone with brute strength.
Pitchers have it better, though, because they can mix the heat with trickery. So in those first moments Tuesday, when Matt Harvey returned to the stage the Mets created for him, he gave the fans everything.
Two fastballs for strikes, at 96 miles an hour. Then another, two ticks higher, for a ball. Then a curveball, almost unfair, and a weak hack from the rookie hitter, Odubel Herrera, for the strikeout.