Drug dealer testifies, stage set for Matt Harvey to take stand in trial of former Los Angeles Angels staffer Eric Kay

FORT WORTH, Texas — It was thrown in almost as an aside, part of a cross-examination at the end of an eventful day in court. While questioning a former DEA agent, defense attorney Michael Molfetta asked whether the agent was aware that in 2019, Tyler Skaggs sent Los Angeles Angels teammate Matt Harvey a text asking him to put drugs in his locker because he wanted to pitch «loosey goosey.»

That nugget, and the suggestion that Skaggs pitched in a game while high, made its way into the record of the U.S. v. Eric Kay during Monday's testimony. But it was more of a tease of what is to come Tuesday when Harvey is scheduled to testify. The former All-Star is expected to face blistering questions about his own history of drug use.

Molfetta did not suggest Monday that Harvey gave Skaggs the drugs that contributed to his death. But the defense team wants to establish that Skaggs got opioids from multiple sources for years and might have gotten that July 2019 supply from someone besides Kay, the former Angels communications director who is on trial for Skaggs' death.

The revelation about Harvey came on what was by far the most eventful day of the week-old trial. Earlier, the jury heard from a friend of Skaggs' named Chris Leanos, who admitted to being a drug dealer.

The government brought Leanos to testify that he was not in California in the days before the trip to Texas on which Skaggs died, intending to eliminate Leanos as a potential source of the drugs Skaggs took when he died. Leanos also testified that he once saw what appeared to be a drug transaction between Kay and Skaggs at a team charity event at Disneyland, after which Skaggs disappeared into a men's room. Leanos said the transaction looked «odd,» and that he guarded