ARLINGTON, Texas — R.A. Dickey has always been a big fan of fiction and the way life imitates it. So for the 40-year-old to get the ball for the Toronto Blue Jays Monday afternoon in the ALDS, in a win-or-go-home game, in the ballpark where he first started throwing the hard, dancing knuckler that reinvented himself and saved his career—it means something.
“It’s special for sure,” Dickey said. “That seems like such a cliché word but it’s funny how it’s come full circle for me personally, having learned the knuckleball here in 2005, and now potentially with a chance to take the series back to Toronto—it’s poetic, is what it is for me. It’s a neat narrative.”
In a lot of ways, it is. When Dickey was brought to Toronto three years ago on the heels of a Cy Young campaign, it was part of a franchise makeover that was meant to propel the Blue Jays into the postseason with Dickey at the top of the rotation. You know how this story goes—Dickey never replicated his incredible 2012 numbers and the Blue Jays never made the playoffs. Until now.
It’s Game 4 of the ALDS, and Dickey is pitching as well as he has in a Toronto uniform, and everything seems to finally be falling into place for a Blue Jays team that started the playoffs slow, and a pitcher who started his season slow.
“I’ve been feeling really good,” Dickey said. “The second half of this season was better than the second half of my Cy Young year.”
He’s right. After struggling to find success in the season’s early stages, Dickey made a mid-season mechanical adjustment that allowed him to put up a 3.04 ERA in 17 starts from the beginning of July onward. His September was especially strong, as that ERA shrunk to 2.43 while opposition batters hit just .188/.211/.306 against him.
“He’s had a great year. Maybe a little bit of a slow start but then he really kicked it in. He’s that one guy who, early on, got zero run support,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “But you look over the last few months, he’s been great. He’s been on a nice little roll. He’s been one of the better pitchers in baseball.”
At times earlier this season, Dickey was having trouble throwing the high-velocity knuckleball that he features when he’s at his best. He averaged just 75-mph on his primary pitch over the first two months of the season, but that average has rebounded into the 77-mph range over the past three months, as Dickey has been able to get the pitch back up to the low-80s at times.
When Dickey was struggling earlier this season, he said he wasn’t feeling his best physically. But lately he’s felt so fresh that he’s been looking for more and more work, throwing simulated games and bullpens in the time between his last start, on Sept. 30 in Tampa, and now.
“I feel great, I really do. My body’s held up very well,” Dickey said. “We’re at Game 165 now. A lot of bodies in [the clubhouse] are saying, wait a second, we’re not used to playing right now. But I feel really good which is good because [Monday] I’m going to need to lean on everything that I’ve got.”
Dickey’s certainly not the most excitable guy in the Blue Jays clubhouse, and no one would ever accuse him of being overcome by high-pressure situations. But Monday’s start will easily be the biggest of his career, and as David Price let everyone know after Game 1 of this series, it would be inhuman to not feel pressure. But Dickey’s manager thinks that might even be a good thing.
“If he’s a little strong, a little revved up, it might make him that much tougher,” Gibbons said. “He’s like all of them—you get a couple outs and they generally settle in anyway. It’s a big game but it’s still just baseball. They have to do their thing. But I could see where games like this for a guy that throws a knuckleball, it could be a little tougher.”
Dickey’s been taking his preparations for this start very seriously. He waited until the Blue Jays arrived in Texas on Saturday to throw his bullpen session in order to acclimate himself to pitching in the heat and make sure his knuckleball was moving well in the environment. Dickey says his knuckler has generally performed well in Arlington, where the heat and humidity help it dance all over the zone.
“Those are two things that contribute to a moving knuckleball, one that reacts favourably as far as movement’s concerned,” Dickey said. “That’s what I rely on. I rely on late movement and this place has traditionally been a pretty good place for that.”
Dickey will also start his pre-game routine a bit earlier than normal, just to ensure he has the right feel on his pitch. He’s well aware that the Blue Jays will be watching his command of it closely, and that if Dickey isn’t at his best, they could exercise the option of making an early game switch to Marcus Stroman or David Price, who will both be on call in the bullpen.
“We’re going to have all hands on deck tomorrow. I’m sure David will be available in the bullpen if needed, because if you lose, you go home,” Dickey said. “So my hope is that I’m able to do what I’ve been doing routinely the last four months, and that’s give us seven strong innings and turn it over to whoever’s next. I don’t anticipate the climate or the way that it feels in my hand to be any different than it’s been.”
Dickey and the Blue Jays should have the benefit of momentum heading into the game, as it will come just 16 hours after the end of Marco Estrada’s terrific performance in Game 3, which kept the Blue Jays season alive. Talking to the media on Sunday afternoon before Game 3, Dickey refused to even acknowledge that he may not be pitching the next day. In his mind, it was a certainty that the Blue Jays would still be alive; and even more of a certainty that they could fight their way back into a series they quickly lost their grip on.
“This is not an insurmountable peak. It’s one that we can get to and we have gotten to at times during the season when we’ve needed to win games,” Dickey said. “We’ve played pretty much the whole month and a half under the yoke of having to win and here we are again having to win.”
And that right there is the nut of Dickey’s narrative. He absolutely has to win.