NEW YORK -- Terry Collins did not explicitly say Matt Harvey was wrong. But the manager said in his mind the Mets clearly are protecting David Wright, in spite of Harvey's assertion otherwise.
Collins agreed that Wright is seeing up-and-in pitches, but not the type that are knocking him on his backside. The manager added that the Mets employ that up-and-in strategy, too.
"Are we retaliating? Ask Ryan Braun how many times he got backed off," Collins said Friday afternoon. "We did hit two guys yesterday if I'm not mistaken.
"So we aren't going to get in a war. They're not throwing things under David's hat. If I start seeing David going on his butt, there will be some answers to it. We protect David as best we can. ... We do it to all the big guys. We've done it to Jayson Werth for I don't know how long. You've got to be careful of starting a war, because the one thing, if you start a war, there's going to be one guy that's going to pay the price for it all (Wright)."
