Matt Harvey and Jhoulys Chacin have shown this season that they have the stuff to be top-of-the rotation hurlers. The two young right- handers square off on Wednesday night as the New York Mets and Colorado Rockies continue a three-game set.
The 24-year-old Harvey is 8-3 with a 2.21 ERA in 22 starts this season for New York, but has lost two of his past three decisions. The Mets have also wasted a number of his solid performances and have managed just one run in his last two outings.
Harvey did not get a decision in a 2-1 setback at Washington on July 26 despite giving up just one unearned run over eight innings. He then picked up a 3-0 loss in Miami on Thursday, giving up just one hit through the first five innings before yielding three runs in the sixth. He recorded two outs in the frame before his exit and fanned eight in all.
"My job is to go out and put up zeroes, and obviously I didn't do that today," Harvey said. "I'm not happy about it."
Harvey faced the Rockies once during the 2012 season and did not get a decision at home on Aug. 22, allowing a run over six innings and striking out nine.
Chacin counters for the Rockies having gone 7-2 with a 2.24 ERA over his last 10 starts. He gutted out an eight-inning victory in Pittsburgh on Friday, retiring the last 14 batters faced despite taking a liner off his forearm in the fifth inning.
The 25-year-old yielded just a run on six hits and fanned three without a walk.
"We gave him the responsibility of being a top-of-the-rotation guy, and he's taken it and has run with it," Colorado manager Walt Weiss said on his team's website. "He took a bullet off the forearm. That thing hit him square, and I thought he might be done after the fifth. He goes out there and gives us three more innings."
In 21 starts this year, Chacin is 10-5 with a 3.40 ERA and holds a career record of 1-0 with a 1.38 ERA in three meetings with the Mets, including two starts.
Chacin will look to salvage a game on Colorado's road trip, one that has seen the club post a 1-7 record over the first 10 contests. The Rockies lost their third straight on Tuesday, falling by a 3-2 score.
Eric Young, traded to the Mets by the Rockies on June 18, scored the go-ahead run in the eighth inning, racing home from second on an infield single by Juan Lagares.
"(Young has) got on base when we needed him to, and he scores runs like that," Mets manager Terry Collins said. "I can't emphasize enough the job he's done since he's been here."
Lagares finished 2-for-4 and drove in all three runs for the Mets, who ended a two-game slide and won for the second time in six games.
With Bobby Parnell on the 15-day disabled list due to a herniated disc in his neck, LaTroy Hawkins picked up his first save of the season by working out of trouble in the ninth inning.
With third baseman David Wright also on the DL because of a strained right hamstring, Wilmer Flores was recalled from the Triple-A Las Vegas and went 0- for-4 in his MLB debut. Ranked New York's fourth-best prospect by MLB.com, Flores was hitting .321 with 15 homers and 86 RBI with Las Vegas before getting recalled.
Charlie Blackmon hit a pinch-hit home run and Nolan Arenado drove in a run for the Rockies, who lost at Citi Field for the first time since Aug. 12, 2010. They had swept four-game sets in New York in each of the previous two campaigns.
Slugger Carlos Gonzalez did not start the game because of a lingering sprained right middle finger and could be headed to the disabled list. Gonzalez has been a force for the Rockies lineup, hitting .302 with 26 homers and 70 RBI this year.
Receive your weekly recap of all the happenings around the world of sports.