When watching the Atlanta Braves' highlights from Wednesday night's game against the Philadelphia Phillies I wondered, "Did the team secretly trade for Matt Harvey while I was at the gym?" There were no tweets from Mark Bowman indicating a transaction and then I read the jersey, it said "Beachy" No. 37. Hmm, something was different.
I'll be honest, this was my first time watching Beachy on the mound this season. It seems like Beachy takes the hill on weekends and I'm never around a television for Braves games on weekends. It's weird, but on Thursday morning I sat down to see some of Beachy's performance since he had recorded his second win of the year. This is what he looked like when pitching for the Braves from 2010-2012, before undergoing Tommy John Surgery.
He's clean cut, with nothing sticking out the back of his hat, just a regular haircut. This image is from 2010. Fast forward to 2013 and we have to do a side-by-side of Beachy and Harvey.
The image on the left has Beachy pitching last night and the one of Harvey was taken back in April. There's some hair sticking out from under Beachy's cap. If you want to blow up the picture to get a clearer view, click here. Harvey has gone back and forth with his hairdos, but it hasn't affected his pitching. Harvey is one of this year's best pitchers. He's 9-4 and in second place amongst pitchers in all of baseball in ERA (2.33) and strikeouts (181). He's the Mets ace and he's only 24 years old.
Beachy had a rough start to his 2013 comeback. On July 29 against the Colorado Rockies, he surrendered seven earned runs then gave up three earned runs against the Philadelphia Phillies for a 9.00 ERA through his first two starts. He's settled down since then, giving up only three earned runs over his last 14 innings pitched. He's far from the ace that Harvey is, but maybe there's something behind the haircut? Super powers if you will? Okay, so maybe they've just had great stuff this year.
The biggest difference is that Harvey plays for the non-contending Mets, while the Braves are in possession of baseball's best record. With the way Harvey has pitched this season, he should be undefeated. Instead, it's the Braves who have carried the load for Beachy whenever he has surrendered a lot of runs. Similar to Harvey and the Mets, the Braves have won the first four games when Beachy has been on the mound this year.
Let's see if the winning streak for Beachy continues or maybe superstition will take over and a loss would prompt the Braves' righty to cut it all off?
