Harvey gave up three runs, two home runs and two walks while striking out four over three innings in the Royals’ 5-0 loss to the Reds.

Thirteen months after his last big-league game, the Dark Knight returned to Major League Baseball.

Matt Harvey made his 2020 debut Wednesday, this time with the Kansas City Royals. The last time we saw Harvey pitch in the majors, the results were quite bad. In 12 starts with the Angels last season, Harvey posted a 7.09 ERA before being released on July 21. He signed with Oakland on a minor-league deal a month later, but never received a call-up. After electing free agency this past winter, he signed another minor-league deal with Kansas City in late July.

Harvey’s issues last season were plentiful, but perhaps chief among them were his continued velocity drop. Since returning from Tommy John surgery in 2015, his average four-seam fastball velocity has declined each season, down to 93.2 mph in 2019. Opposing batters feasted on his diminished heater, hitting .299 against the fastball last year with a .542 slugging percentage.

(via Baseball Savant)

On Wednesday, the results were more of the same. Harvey gave up three runs in three innings, allowing two home runs with two walks and four strikeouts as the Royals lost the second game of their doubleheader to the Reds, 5-0.

Let’s begin with some positives: Harvey threw 30 fastballs on the day, with an average velocity 93.5 mph—not a huge uptick from where he was in 2019, but progress is progress. His hardest pitch of the afternoon came in the first inning and clocked in at 95.5 mph. He also generated seven swings-and-misses, good for a 13% swinging-strike rate. Surely, he won’t keep missing bats at that clip, but it is encouraging nonetheless.

His slowest fastball was his last one, a 91.1 mph pitch that Shogo Akiyama took for a ball with two outs in the third inning. Akiyama lined out on the next pitch to end Harvey’s day.

That drop in velocity could be a cause for concern, though it’s admittedly too soon to draw any conclusions. Though Harvey had been stretched out to five innings in a simulated game and was reportedly