TORONTO — As they’ve began the 2016 season playing at a disappointing .444 clip, the Toronto Blue Jays have been waiting for a lot of things to turn.
First and foremost, there’s the hitters, who have trudged through a completely bewildering, improbable, disheartening slump over these first 28 games. Then there’s the bullpen, which hasn’t been atrocious, but also hasn’t been perfect, which has been the necessity in the early going as the team’s offence has handed it a series of one or two run leads, some that have been converted, and others that have been lost in dispiriting fashion.
And finally, there’s R.A. Dickey, who may have found his turning point Monday night.
“The season is really six different seasons,” Dickey said after the Blue Jays coughed up another winnable game Monday night, this time to the Texas Rangers, 2-1. “Right now we’re sputtering a little bit. But we’ve got the pedigree in here and it’s just a matter of time before we start clicking.”
The six different seasons would be the six different months, and if you subscribe to Dickey’s concept, then you’ll notice that the Blue Jays have just crossed into their second of the half dozen. As a collective, they are nowhere near where they’d like to be. But Dickey’s been waiting for this personal moment since practically opening day.
For whatever reason, the Blue Jays knuckleballer has been consistently slow out of the gate over the last few years, posting April ERA’s of 5.09 in 2014 and 5.23 in 2015 before significantly improving his performance later in the season. And to that point, Dickey has been the one Blue Jays starter in 2016 who hasn’t opened the season with a run of strong performances.
J.A. Happ, Aaron Sanchez and Marco Estrada all posted first month ERA’s below three, and Marcus Stroman’s 3.77 isn’t far off. Dickey’s ERA, meanwhile, stands in stark contrast at 6.75 across his five April outings.
You probably remember the games. There was the eight-hit, seven-run implosion against the Red Sox early in the season; there was the one in Baltimore when he gave up three runs in the first inning; and there was the start against the White Sox last week, which saw him allow six runs on eight hits and led to him saying after the game, “I’m thankful April’s over, let’s put it that way.”
And fair enough. Because that all led to Monday night’s outing, his first of May, and his best of the season, when he went 6.1 innings, allowing just a run on six hits. He struck out only three, but got nine outs via groundballs as the Rangers chased his tailing knucklers all over the zone and hit into a pair of double plays.
Perhaps the most encouraging element of Dickey’s performance was that he was throwing his knuckler with more velocity than he did in April, something he says is crucial to his success going forward.
“I think psychologically for me it makes a good bit of difference as far as being able to attack the strike zone with a knuckleball that’s 77 or above,” Dickey says. “You feel like your margin of error is better.”
Dickey’s knuckler averaged 75.7 mph Monday night, but it topped out at 79.8 as the 41-year-old varied his velocities to give hitters more to think about than just the pitch’s movement.
“I’m thankful April’s over,” R.A. Dickey said recently. (Frank Gunn/CP)
Over the last few seasons, Dickey has generally been at his most effective when his knuckler is averaging 76-77 mph. Sure, he won a Cy Young Award when it averaged 78 mph in 2012, but those days are long behind him. The best he can do today is what he’s done in each of the last two seasons, when he’s averaged 76.6 mph on the pitch.
His slow starts in the last two Aprils have coincided with that lower velocity in his first handful of outings. Last season he averaged 75.2 mph on the pitch in April before steadily raising his velocity for the rest of the year. This April he averaged 75.2 again, and hopes the rest of the story follows suit.
“It usually takes me a little bit to get going,” Dickey says. “My hope is that this is the start of 27 more quality starts. That’s what I’m working towards.”
Throwing his pitch harder certainly helps, but throwing it for strikes helps even more. Dickey battled his command at times Monday night, walking two batters with two out in the fifth inning to put himself in a legitimate jam. But he bounced back strong, and went right after Rougned Odor with those runners on, striking out the Rangers second baseman in the biggest spot he faced.
Dickey walked another in the seventh before allowing a two-strike single to Delino DeShields that ended his night, but he otherwise stayed almost completely out of trouble.
The one pitch he wishes he had back was a 70-mph knuckler he threw to Brett Nicholas in the third inning that left the yard. Down 2-1 in the count, Dickey says he was trying too hard to guide the ball into the strike zone instead of letting the pitch do what it does. It’s a habit he’s been spending his time between starts working towards correcting.
“I still mechanically pulled off of a few,” Dickey says. “Once I start eliminating those I’ll go deeper and deeper into games, I think. It’s going to take some work and I’m up for it.”
Still, Dickey was in the zone most of the night, throwing 67 per cent of his pitches for strikes, his highest rate of the season. Dickey’s at his best when he’s filling up the zone, as the late movement on his pitch can generate all kinds of weak contact. He was able to hold his hard-hit rate to below 24 per cent in 2015, which was a big reason why he was able to pitch to a 3.11 ERA from the beginning of June through to the end of the season.
But going into Monday night’s start, Dickey’s hard-hit rate for 2016 was 10 points higher, as he had been giving up plenty of solid contact. Throwing with more movement in the zone and getting the ball off the barrels of hitters’ bats has been a focus for him in his bullpen sessions.
“I felt pretty confident. I’ve been working real hard between outings,” Dickey said. “I’m just trying to get more in attack mode. Trying to work ahead in counts a little bit more. I firmed up my knuckleball a little more consistently. I thought I carried the velocities through the innings well tonight.”
Of course, Dickey is going to give up a good amount of home runs (he’s allowed an MLB-leading 90 since 2013) and he’s going to get hit hard on nights when his knuckleball simply isn’t moving the way it can. But the Blue Jays can’t ask much more of him than the outing he provided Monday night — pitching into the seventh inning and holding the opposition to just a run.
If Dickey has in fact reached his turning point, it’s time for the rest of the Blue Jays to join him.
“I thought he was really, really good. He pitched good enough to win,” Dickey’s manager, John Gibbons, said. “Bottom line, in these close games we’re just not executing good enough to win. It’s pretty simple. Base running’s been a little shoddy. We haven’t been getting the bunts down like we should. In tight ballgames, you don’t win that way.”