NEW YORK — Matt Harvey has embraced his superheroic nickname but, recently anyway, the Dark Knight of Gotham hasn’t lived up to it. Superheroes don’t allow mortals, even those responsible for their superhero bank accounts, to publicly gripe about mission counts. Superheroes don’t miss superhero training sessions. Harvey won his Game 3 start against the Dodgers in the NLDS, but it was a sweaty, unphotogenic, five-inning slog after which everyone admitted he didn’t have his best stuff, not at all the type of rousing adventure that someone like Christopher Nolan would want to shoot.
After all that, Harvey had gone into manager Terry Collins’s office prior to the decisive Game 5 in Los Angeles to volunteer his services in relief, perhaps in part to reestablish his reputation.