Set aside the question of blame in Matt Harvey's situation for the time being. Postpone all the questions about who said what to whom about his innings and when it was said, and what he should or shouldn't do now, or what he or the New York Mets should've done in March or August. There will be plenty of time for those assessments later, and those judgments will inevitably be made across the baseball landscape with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight. Stephen Strasburg and Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo could testify to this better than anyone.

What matters now is for the Mets and Harvey to focus on the challenge in front of them at this moment: working to bury the Nationals in the NL East and propel New York into the postseason for the first time since 2006 -- and only the second time since the Subway Series of 2000.

As Mets general manager Sandy Alderson and Harvey consider where this stands today, what they must already know is there really is no good way to use the scant number of innings available under the guidelines that Harvey has apparently embraced, which he has the right to do.

Harvey has 166 1/3 innings in the bank, and if he winds up pitching somewhere around 185 innings, which seems to be the goal, well, this is like trying to bake a birthday cake serving 20 without enough flour. No matter what structure the Mets and Harvey agree to, it won't seem to be enough.

In order for this chapter to turn out well and not dominate the Mets' offseason conversation, the other Mets need to cover for him like they did Monday, when some young relievers stepped up and some older hitters hammered Max Scherzer in an enormously important and emotional win over the Nationals. What a game, Mets third baseman David Wright said afterward. The Mets' magic number for clinching is down to 21, Adam Rubin writes. The simple truth is that every Mets win through the end of this month and through October will ease the scrutiny over Harvey's innings count, while every Mets loss will add strain and recrimination.

But for Harvey and his remaining work, there is no magic formula.