Bryce Harper watched Matt Harvey crash into a wall of boos as the pitcher walked back to the dugout Thursday night and felt moved to say later that he felt bad for him.

Among the feelings in hitters that Harvey has generated -- anger, frustration, despair -- pity is not something he aims for. But there it is, after Harvey failed to get through the third inning, and today Harvey begins the search for solutions.

There is a reason that most coaches will wait until the day after a start to have a conversation with a pitcher who is struggling, so that some of the raw emotion of a terrible start has ebbed. When Mets pitching coach Dan Warthen and manager Terry Collins sit down Friday with Harvey, what they presumably will discuss is that he has a lot of weapons.

Harvey's fastball velocity is down early this season, for sure, by a little more than a mile per hour. But his fastball was clocked as high as 96 mph early in his start against the Nationals, and his average velocity of 94 mph this season is among the best 13 in the majors. His average velocity is better than that of Jake Arrieta or Clayton Kershaw. So it's not as if he is unarmed.

The execution of his secondary pitches might be the root of the problem, such as in the first inning, when Harvey intended to bounce a breaking ball to Daniel Murphy on an 0-2 pitch and instead hung a curve over the middle. A cement mixer, Roger Clemens used to call it. Murphy teed off for a two-run homer.

Some of the pitch selection was odd, such as when he reached a 3-2 count to the second batter he faced, Jayson Werth, and spun a slider rather than challenge Werth with a fastball on the outer edge. He walked Werth, the first domino to fall in this game.

And maybe Warthen and Collins can reassure Harvey with this, as well: The Mets' defense, which has been awful this season, absolutely crushed the right-hander in this game. Asdrubal Cabrera had a chance to turn a double play in the ugly third inning and fumbled the ball. Yoenis Cespedes was unable to reach a fly ball that almost all center fielders would reach. Left fielder Michael Conforto had a chance to make a play with a high degree of difficulty, when Anthony Rendon laced a missile to left, and he mistimed his jump. After Harvey left the game, third baseman David Wright bypassed chances to make aggressive, difference-making throws, instead opting for easier throws. If Harvey is suffering from a crisis of confidence on this team, he probably isn't alone.