Right after being written off as the latest young pitching phenom to fall victim to a bum elbow, Matt Harvey has decided to forego Tommy John surgery and try to rehab his partially-torn UCL. Now a lot of folks have had the same knee-jerk reaction: Harvey should have the surgery now so he can get back to breathing life into the New York Mets‘ franchise ASAP. But he’s actually on to something with this rehab thing.
After getting a second opinion from only the greatest doctor in all of pro sports, Harvey has good reason to believe he can fully recover from this dreaded injury with a six- to eight-week throwing program, which would mean he’d be ready to go by opening day in 2014. And while some may think that’s foolish because of the risk, it would actually be foolish for Harvey to have the surgery without trying to rehab first, especially since that advice came from the one and only Dr. James Andrews.
See, even if Harvey has to have surgery after the throwing program, he’ll still be ready to go for the 2015 season, which would have been the case had he underwent surgery last week. So basically, the young Mets’ pitcher is wise beyond his years…and he got some advice from a guy whose actually wise because of his years. So look on the bright side, Mets fans…as strange as that may sound.
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