TORONTO – If it means anything to you, R.A. Dickey’s just as tired of it all as Toronto Blue Jays fans.
Tired of saying he was “one poor pitch away from a good outing” every outing. Tired of being, in his words, in that place he often finds himself early in the season, where “if I could have one pitch back, it would be a much better result.” Yet that’s where he is, right now.
“It will turn,” the knuckleballer said Sunday, following a 6-3 loss to the Boston Red Sox at Rogers Centre in which the 1-4 Dickey gave up seven hits (including two home runs), three walks and didn’t strike out a batter for the second consecutive start, extending his streak without a strikeout to 15.2 innings.
Dickey, who averaged 193 strikeouts over the past three seasons including his Cy Young award-winning campaign with the New York Mets, has failed to strike out a batter in three of his last four starts. His swinging strike percentage was 7.8 going into Sunday’s game, well off last year’s 10.4 and behind his career average of 9.1.
Sunday, he recorded just two swinging strikes, both by Mookie Betts and one of them on his second pitch of the game. Hitters are making contact inside the strike zone at a frequency higher than a year before his 2012 Cy Young season. So, with all due respect, where does Dickey get his confidence?
“Where do we normally get confidence from? Our past experiences,” Dickey said. “This pitch, and the 162-game season, the 34 starts every year.
“You have little mini seasons within the season, and the last three-game stretch has been very odd for me. Striking out four guys in three outings is very bizarre for me. You’ve got to keep your head up and searching for answers and keep grinding it out, and know there are many seasons within a season.”
Nobody said life with a knuckleballer was going to be easy — and it hasn’t been.
Dickey’s Cy Young award – plus the fact that gilt-edged prospects Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard were the cost exacted by the Mets in the trade that sent Dickey to Toronto – has made him a frequent target of Jays fans.
So the grumbles were audible when Pablo Sandoval doubled in the game’s first run in a four-run first inning, followed by boos when Mike Napoli slugged a three-run homer to left on a 1-1 pitch. Sandoval clubbed a two-run shot with two out in the fifth that turned out to be the telling blow.
“Too much to overcome,” manager John Gibbons said later, after the Blue Jays missed a chance to sweep the Red Sox in front of a Mother’s Day crowd of 42,419, ending their homestand at 4-2 and leaving their record at .500 (16-16) heading out on a seven-game road trip to Baltimore and Houston.
“I feel good right now,” Gibbons said of the homestand. “I like the way we’ve been playing overall. Our pitching was much better … although that was one area we thought was due to turn any way. The bullpen has settled down quite a bit. Everything’s started to fall in place.”
Well, not entirely.
There is still no indication when Dioner Navarro and Jose Reyes will be back in the lineup, and Michael Saunders went back on the 15-day disabled list on Sunday with inflammation in his left knee, selecting the contract of utility man Steve Tolleson. Jose Bautista, meanwhile, still hasn’t picked up a baseball with his aching right shoulder.
Red Sox broadcaster Steve Lyons said during the NESN telecast of Sunday’s game that “some people are whispering Jose Bautista is OK to be playing right field,” and it would be interesting to know the source of that information.
In the meantime, Bautista has reached in 10 consecutive games and is hitting .333 this month, Edwin Encarnacion is hitting .343 and on Saturday homered for the first time in 16 games, Chris Colabello (three-for-four Sunday, Ezequiel Carrera and Ryan Goins are keeping body and soul together at the plate and in the field, and Josh Donaldson and Russell Martin are continuing to be the most consistent players in the lineup.
Things could be worse.
All around, there are hints that the American League East is something of a construction zone. Pitching coach Juan Nieves was fired by the Red Sox on Thursday and Carl Willis hired, Allen Craig and his $26.5 million contract was sent out to Triple-A Pawtucket on Sunday for Jackie Bradley Jr., and the Red Sox felt the need to call a players-only meeting Saturday afternoon.
Meanwhile, in Tampa, the Rays found out that Drew Smyly has a torn labrum a few days after determining that Alex Cobb will undergo Tommy John surgery.
Orioles flame-thrower Kevin Gausman will miss the Blue Jays series and will undergo an MRI on Monday to determine the severity of his shoulder tendinitis.
Nevertheless, Dickey kicked himself later for “squashing momentum.” Napoli’s homer ended a streak of 31 innings without allowing a homer for Blue Jays pitchers, and the Blue Jays had held an opponent to one run or less over three consecutive games for the first time in almost two seasons.
Mark Buehrle pitched the type of game that brought about a sigh of relief during the homestand, Aaron Sanchez tossed seven innings of two-hit ball on Friday and Drew Hutchison survived a start that gave the glass-half-full crowd a little ammunition.
Even the much-maligned bullpen seemed to regain its footing with the call-up of Steve Delabar – who in two games has at least shown hints of being back to form – and Ryan Tepera, who tossed two innings of perfect relief on Sunday, throwing strikes.
Donaldson saw progress.
“The most encouraging part, to me, has been that the starting pitching is doing it’s job and we’ve added a few new faces in the bullpen that have really come in and done a nice job for us,” said Donaldson, who raised his average to .336 over the past 25 games with his sixth double during that span. Colabello had an RBI single and Devon Travis had a run-scoring ground out for his 25th RBI, rounding out the Blue Jays offence.
“Sometimes, it takes a month or so to really see where your team is at.” Donaldson said, continuing. “I feel it’s going in the right direction, compared to when we were in Tampa when we would score some runs, give them back, then stop hitting for a day.
“Even today, we were in a position where if we put some at bats together in the ninth inning we could win. We’re starting to get the pieces of the puzzle.”
The question is, will that puzzle come together before everybody else’s?