[If you’ve had enough Harvey by now, skip down to “Other Monday action.”]

Six inches, maybe four: That’s what came between Matt Harvey and 9 perfect innings. The only blot on his line was a 2-out infield hit in the 7th by Alex Rios, gloved in the hole by Ruben Tejada with a jump-throw that was a split second late. Move that grounder a few inches to the right….

But it was ever thus in near-misses. And we can’t say it would have been a perfect game — you don’t get any kind of no-hitter without going the distance, and the Mets couldn’t score in regulation, either. Since Harvey didn’t stay in for the 10th after 105 pitches (on a week’s rest), who’s to say he would have stayed in with 100 pitches? I think Terry Collins is done with extending pitchers to chase personal records.

Tejada is a solid glove, not great. No knock on Ruben, but most Mets fans saw Rey Ordonez make that play dozens of times, with his trademark half-slide and throw from one knee. But no recriminations.

Harvey’s 1st-inning nosebleed was repacked between innings. If he’d completed a perfecto, would the Bloody, Snotty Cotton Ball have gone to the Hall of Fame?

Watching the game on TV, I didn’t think Harvey was racking up whiffs, but he finished with 12 Ks. When you go 9 innings, you can get to 12 by 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 0, 2. He got a close call on a check swing on his last batter, which otherwise would have been his first walk.

The Sox came in with a .229 BA and .283 OBP and last in AL scoring, which is why I set my DVR. They weren’t hacking wildly, but with Harvey throwing strikes — 20 of 28 first pitches, 76 of 105 overall — they had 11 ABs settled in 1 or 2 pitches.

Harvey pitched in the 9th for the first time as a pro. His season stats now read: 1.28 ERA, .133 BA, 49.1 IP, 22 hits, 7 runs, 12 walks, 58 Ks.

He’s fanned 33% of all batters. For a frame of reference (and not because I think he’ll maintain this pace), there have been 6 qualified seasons with a 33% K rate: 5 by Randy, 2 by Pedro, and Kerry Wood‘s rookie year. The season record is Pedro’s 37.5% in 1999.

Somewhat lost in the Harvey buzz, Hector Santiago was sharp for a second straight start since moving up from the bullpen to face Texas last week. In 12.1 IP, he’s allowed 1 run on 6 hits, with 4 walks and 14 Ks. He’s from nearby Newark, NJ, and had a large group of family & friends in the stands tonight. Good on you, Hector!

A search on Baseball-Reference for “the harvey” still brings up Harvey Kuenn. That might change by year’s end.

I moved to New York City in the summer of ’84, just as Doc Gooden was making The Leap. My first trip to Shea was Doc’s 1-hitter, so of course he’s my frame of reference for a young Mets stud. I don’t think Harvey’s as electric as Gooden was then, or in his followup Cy Young year. But I think he has a brighter future.

Gooden reigned with two premium pitches, the “rising” fastball (back when umps would call a chest-high strike), and the 12-to-6 yakker. In year 3, the league started laying off the high cheese — you couldn’t hit it, anyway — and while he was still good in years 3-6 (until the injury), he was never again dominant. Harvey has a bigger arsenal; his change is already excellent, and his breaking balls are improving by the week. And he’ll be more protected. Gooden at 18 tossed 191 innings (minors), then 218 at 19 and 277 at 20. Harvey worked about 170 IP last year, age 23; I’d expect a hard cap of 200 this time.

Harvey’s gem came in his 17th game. He’s the 12th pitcher since 1916 within his first 20 games to go at least 9 IP with no more than 1 baserunner (H, BB or HBP). Half those games have come since 2008. (Whatever happened to Zach Stewart?) Harvey’s the first of that group to add 10+ strikeouts. The list includes a no-hitter by Vida Blue (16th game, after a 1-hitter in game 14) and a perfecto by Charlie Robertson (5th game, with a 2-year layoff after a 1-game trial).

Fastest to a game of 1 baserunner in 9+ innings (since 1916)

Von McDaniel, by the way, was Lindy’s little brother and teammate. He pitched 17 games as an 18-year-old, going 7-5 with a 3.22 ERA, a 2-hit shutout in his first start and the 1-hitter in his 7th. He hurt his arm the next year, switched to infield in the minors, but never made it back.

Travis Wood (also above) was in action Monday with his 7th straight quality start (no cheapies). He’s finally starting to redeem the promise of that gem from his 3rd game. Kuroda also pitched Monday, a tough loss in Coors; still going strong at 38. Both have ERAs in the 2.30 range.

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Mike Baxter is 17 for 47 as a pinch-hitter (.362), with 10 doubles and a .450 OBP. With men in scoring position, he’s 7 for 16 with 11 RBI. But this was his first walk-off — in fact, his first RBI ever in the 9th or later. He’s been awful as a starter, one historic catch notwithstanding.

Interesting choice in the 10th by Robin Ventura: Baxter was announced with a man on 2nd and 1 away, the righty Nate Jones in his second inning. Ventura could have gone to the lefty, Matt Thornton; Baxter hasn’t hit lefties at all (3 for 27), and no other Met is an accomplished pinch-hitter. Or he could have walked Baxter, setting up a DP, and had Jones go after Tejada, hitting .243 overall and much worse against RHPs; if the inning continued, he could have gone to Thornton for the lefty Daniel Murphy.

But here’s why it’s interesting, not necessarily puzzling: Nate Jones has a huge reverse split in his short career — .296 BA by righties, .193 by lefties (21-109). I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a manager put faith in a reverse split in a tight spot — maybe Lasorda with Fernando’s screwball against righties. (But Tommy mainly just left Fernando in until he had to come out.) If you’ve heard Ventura speak of Nate’s ability to get lefties out, let us know.

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Our beloved Mets broadcast team of Gary Cohen and Ron Darling were adamant that Ike Davis, the winning run on 2nd, should have come out for a pinch-runner. I disagreed. Davis is slow, not glacial; he’d scored from 2nd on a single in over half his chances. And Baxter hits a lot of doubles, 28% of career hits. (Last night’s winner would have been another, had he needed to go past 1st.) But more, I saw the game going long, and even though Ike’s been dreadful so far, I wanted that walk-off threat.

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Another footnote: Bobby Parnell, who retired the side in order for the win (2 Ks), has allowed 6 hits, 2 walks and 2 runs in 14 innings. He has just 3 saves (in 5 opps), but also has 3 wins from games he entered that were tied. “The hi-lev inches we need are everywhere around us….”

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There’s been one no-hitter against the White Sox since 1992 — Francisco Liriano’s odd 6-walk, 2-K effort in a 1-0 win two years ago. He bested Edwin Jackson, who’d tossed his own 8-walk, 149-pitch no-no 10 months earlier, also in a 1-0 game.

The last 1-0 game in extra innings featured two starters who each left after 8 innings, having thrown 105 pitches (Luke Hochevar) and 114 pitches (David Price). The Royals won that game in the 10th, ending with a clean inning by Greg Holland. There have been 53 1-0 games since the start of last year; only 9 of those were complete games, and 2 of those were no-hitters.

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Other Monday action:

Craig Kimbrel, meet Jose Jimenez. By my check, the last time a pitcher allowed tying and go-ahead HRs with 2 outs in the 9th or later, same inning, was June 8, 2004, Marlins over Indians, the blows by Miguel Cabrera and Damion Easley. The last such game with back-to-back HRs came just one week earlier, when Atlanta’s Nick Green (3-run shot) and J.D. Drew (next pitch) connected off Montreal’s Rocky Biddle. Jimenez and Biddle saw their careers end that season. (Joke, bstar! Well, not for them….)

The last game with tying and go-ahead HRs with 2 outs in the 9th or later, not necessarily the same pitcher, was May 13, 2007, Oakland over Cleveland — Milton Bradley off Joe Borowski, who allowed 2 more hits and gave way to Fernando Cabrera, who surrendered Jack Cust’s walk-off.

The last pinch-hit tying or go-ahead HR with 2 outs in the 9th or later was last June 17, a memorable rivalry game between the Royals and Cardinals in St. Louis. The Cards were up 2-1 after back-to-back jacks by Matt Holliday and Allen Craig in the 6th. In the 9th, Jason Motte fanned the first 2 on 7 pitches. Billy Butler pinch-hit and fell behind, 0-2, but pumped the next one into the left-center seats to tie. KC went ahead in the 14th on a double by Yuniesky Betancourt, who had come in for an injured Chris Getz and went 0-5 with a DP before that tiebreaker. But with 2 outs in their half, Yadier Molina knotted it up again, converting a leadoff walk from Broxton. Next inning, Betancourt struck again, a 2-out, 2-run shot, and Broxton hung on for the win.

Devin Mesoraco’s previous biggest HR was a go-ahead grand slam off reliever Kris Medlen, last May 24, to the benefit of Homer Bailey.

So, “what’s wrong with Kimbrel?” There’s talk of a couple missing m.p.h., but here’s another possibility: Nothing significant. In the 3 blown saves, he fanned 7 of 15 batters, and walked 1. One game was in Colorado, where such things are a way of life. Another featured a poor choice of location for a fastball to David Wright. The latest, Mesoraco hit a pitch that was knee-high at most, middle of the plate, and parked it over the right-center wall. I haven’t seen many RHBs drive that pitch out in that direction. Choo’s HR was also knee-high. (Could they be “stealing” location?) Anyway, while Kimbrel’s K% is below last year’s superhuman rate, it’s about the same as in 2011, when he was also superb. Three bad games in a 2-week cluster just isn’t enough to judge. Aroldis Chapman had a brutal stretch last June: 7 games, 8 ER in 6.1 IP, 3 HRs, 3 blown saves, 4 losses. He’d been unscathed before that, and got right back on track afterwards, 4 runs in his last 37 games, 30 for 31 in saves.

Mesoraco and Wright showed one thing, though: With a barrel-heavy bat and a high-90s fastball, you don’t need a big swing to knock it out. Those weren’t defensive cuts, no, but they weren’t “home-run swings.”

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Only the Ohio teams have won two 1-0 games this year. Each had just one last year. Congrats to Zach McAllister, who tied his best game score with 7.2 shutout stanzas.

Tommy Milone took this year’s first loss with 7+ IP and no earned runs. There were two such games last year, by Kershaw and Kennedy.

The 2nd inning is always the lowest-scoring inning for starting pitchers as a group. Tim Lincecum has a 12.86 ERA in the 2nd after 7 starts — 0, 5, 0, 0, 0, 3 and 2.

That’s 12 games now where a SF starter allowed 5+ runs, and 6 of them at home, where they had 9 all last year.

Kyle Kendrick is on a 6-game roll, averaging 7 IP and less than 2 runs, still keeping his gopheritis in check.

Brandon League was sunk by the leadoff walk to Gerardo Parra, almost as much as Goldschmidt’s homer. Putz did the same in turn, but at least he had the injury excuse.

Nice to see a QS at last from Brandon McCarthy, especially in light of the injury to J.A. Happ. All McCarthy suffers from now is a .385 BAbip.

Yanks were this year’s first Coors shutout victims. The Rox have allowed 4.2 R/G through 16 home dates; their best season average was 4.7 R/G in 2009-10. (Last year, 6.5 R/G.)

Teams scoring exactly 2 runs in Coors Field are now 27-210.

Four total bases or less in Coors Field (as for the Yanks): 39 games, one win (with 7 walks creating all 3 runs).

Two steals by Ichiro, passing Ed Delahanty and Ron LeFlore for #49 on the career list with 456 SB. Bobby Bonds is next.

I’m sure Jorge De La Rosa pitched well; he has 3 games of 6 scoreless innings, as many as anyone around. But the Yanks have really struggled to hit lefties — .216 BA, .633 OPS. Somehow, they’re still 8-4 against southpaw starters.

Scott Diamond had the league’s lowest walk rate last year, and has shaved it even more so far (3 BB in 29.2 IP). Could he prove to be that rare pitcher who can succeed over time with less than 5 SO/9? So far, he’s shown the needed components — excellent walk rate, manageable HR rate, plenty of DPs. Out of 50 AL pitchers with 150+ IP since 2012, Diamond is #40 in BA (.275), but #22 in OBP (.308) and #4 in GDPs.

Twins are 5-2 in blowouts; 31-59 for 2011-12.

Seems to me I’ve heard this song before: Rangers OPSing .838 at home, .672 away.

Travis Wood has kept his team in every game so far, but expect some comedown from his .202 BAbip and .132/.396 with men on.

Who thought the Cubs starters would have a 3.41 ERA, tied for 2nd in the NL and 3rd in IP/GS?

Heard some cheap shots about Houston’s “Triple-A lineup” during Detroit’s sweep. What does that say for the Jays, M’s and ChiSox, all scoring less per game than Houston?

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In Monday’s notes, I neglected Mark DeRosa’s 2-run pinch-HR in the Jays’ comeback. DeRosa has been a very good pinch-hitter — not a ton of power, but a career .281 BA and .373 OBP, both better than his overall marks. With anyone on base, he’s gone 21 for 58, .362 BA, .465 OBP, with 22 RBI and just 1 DP.