Orioles pitcher Harvey suspended for providing drugs to Skaggs

Matt Harvey, a veteran pitcher on a minor-league contract with the Baltimore Orioles, was suspended for 60 games by Major League Baseball on Tuesday for distributing a prohibited drug of abuse.

Harvey, who was once the ace of a New York Mets starting rotation that led the team to the 2015 World Series, openly discussed his drug use during the trial of Eric Kay, a former Los Angeles Angels employee who was found guilty on two charges over his role in the death of Tyler Skaggs, a pitcher on the team. Skaggs, a teammate of Harvey’s on the Angels in 2019, was found dead at age 27 in a hotel room in Texas after overdosing on a mixture of drugs, including fentanyl.

During Kay’s trial, in which Harvey and several former teammates openly discussed drug use among Angels players, Harvey, 33, said cocaine was his drug of choice but that he began using Percocet, an opioid, during the 2019 season. He said he shared some of the Percocet with Skaggs. Federal prosecutors said Skaggs was killed by fentanyl provided to him by Kay, not the Percocet given to him by Harvey.

In MLB’s announcement of Harvey’s punishment, the league stated Harvey had violated the terms of the joint drug prevention and treatment program by distributing a drug of abuse and that the suspension was retroactive to April 29.