TORONTO – R.A. Dickey won his first career Gold Glove on Tuesday night, becoming the first Toronto Blue Jays pitcher to ever claim the award and the club’s first player to claim the annual defensive honours since 2006.
The knuckleballer’s victory ended the four-year run of teammate Mark Buehrle, who bagged the American League prize in 2009, ’10, and ’11 as a member of the Chicago White Sox before taking home the National League award with the Miami Marlins in 2012.
Buehrle and Doug Fister of the Detroit Tigers were the other finalists for the AL Gold Glove, which this year was awarded under a new system which gave the traditional balloting of managers and coaches a 75 percent weighting, while adding a defensive metrics component that provided the remaining 25 percent.
Dickey, who led AL pitchers in a stat known as defensive runs saved with seven, is the ninth different Blue Jays player to win a Gold Glove with the club collecting the prize for a 23rd time.
Centre-fielder Vernon Wells claimed the last Blue Jays Gold Glove in 2006.
