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Palladino: Is Harvey's Health Scare Just The Beginning For Mets?

By Ernie Palladino
» More Ernie Palladino Columns

Everything was set right again in the Mets' world Tuesday morning when Matt Harvey came back to camp.

Or was it?

Turns out the bladder clots that sent him scurrying up north for treatment formed because he failed to heed Nature's call, at least according to the right-hander. Nothing serious, and that is a good thing. Just a big blockage the docs had to coax out of there.

Oh, he gave himself a good scare. Guaranteed he won't pass another restroom without at least thinking about using it. But for the most part, everything is hunky-dory again.

After Terry Collins brushes out the extra grays he accumulated since Monday, he'll go forth. He'll pitch his ace a couple innings Wednesday, and Harvey will start Opening Day Sunday in Kansas City, as planned.

And that's exactly how the Mets would love to proceed: normal. They'd like nothing better than to allow this latest Harvey episode to fade quickly into a memory of a preseason blip. And if it all goes their way this year, people will sooner remember his innings controversy at the end of last year than this one.

Full speed ahead, so to speak. Happy, happy.

Just remember, though, nothing is ever simple with the Mets. Little showers turn into big rainstorms quickly at that end of the baseball universe. So everyone, from the guy with the top-row seat at Citi Field to Collins, should be on high alert.

While they're at it, they can ponder these two questions.

First, didn't Harvey ever listen when his mother told him "When ya gotta go, ya gotta go. So go!"

And, is this just the beginning?

Harvey pretty much answered the first one himself in a discourse over his personal bathroom habits.

The second, assuming Harvey has no serious, underlying problem, is the important one. Are the baseball Furies preparing to drop a Gucci showroom full of shoes on the Mets' heads?

They've done it before, in almost the exact situation as this one.

In 1987, the Mets were poised to defend their World Series title. They were loaded. Dwight Gooden, Ron Darling, Sid Fernandez, Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter, Lenny Dykstra.

It turned out Gooden was a little more loaded than the rest. High, actually. On April 1, the Mets announced he had gone into the Smithers Center to rehab from cocaine abuse.

He spent 27 days in there and didn't throw his first pitch in anger until June 5.

The Mets still won 92 games that year, but they finished second and failed to make the postseason in the BW (before wild cards) era.

David Wright was set to lead his team in 2014, but then he hurt his shoulder early, and his production plummeted. So, coincidentally, did the Mets' lineup. And it stayed stagnant right through July of last year, after Wright missed most of the season after doctors diagnosed him with spinal stenosis.

The shoes haven't dropped from the sky yet, so Collins can afford to be optimistic that Harvey's bladder problem, Jacob deGrom's little back blip, the twinge last year's savior Yoenis Cespedes felt in his throwing arm a few days ago and whatever other minor ailments any other players might be suffering will in the long run remain insignificant.

This is a time for hope, after all.

Collins should have his antennae up, though. Little cracks can become big gaps quickly.

The manager had best hope that Harvey's water problem was just a clog in the Mets' sprinkler system, and not the beginning of busted water main.

Follow Ernie on Twitter at @ErniePalladino

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