Five days after issuing a career-high six walks, R.A. Dickey shut down the New York Yankees with a reassuring bounce-back performance. It was a relief for the Toronto Blue Jays, who are counting on the knuckleballer for performances in settings just like this: against deep lineups, after tough losses, in front of sellout crowds.
Yet Dickey says some ups and downs are inevitable with knuckleball pitchers.
“You’ve got to live and die with the pitch. That’s part of what makes it difficult to do at the big league level and it makes it very special,” Dickey said. “You’ve got to try to have the resolve to hold both. Tonight was very different, much better obviously.”
Dickey held the Yankees off the scoreboard into the seventh inning, allowing five hits at Rogers Centre Saturday in front of 45,446 fans as the Blue Jays beat New York 4-0. He struck out six, throwing 69 of his 108 pitches for strikes before giving way to Blue Jays relievers Aaron Loup, Brett Cecil and Sergio Santos. Just as importantly, he allowed just one hit by pitch and one walk, a sixth inning free pass to Derek Jeter.
“The knuckleball was electric,” catcher Josh Thole said after the game. “You start there and the command was really good so he was able to manipulate it a bit and do things that he wanted to do.”
Dickey complemented his command with steady velocity in the 78-79 m.p.h. range by using his legs more than he did in the season opener. When he’s generating that kind of speed, he has a better feel for where the pitch is heading.
“I certainly feel much more in control when I’m able to get to those higher velocities,” Dickey said. “The thing that has always separated me from a traditional knuckleballer is that the velocities have been a little bit higher.”
There’s no way around the fact that knuckleball pitchers are going to issue walks. Dickey allowed a career-high 71 in 224.2 innings last season and it didn’t prevent him from having a solid year. But limiting the free passes will allow the Blue Jays to win the occasional close game. Compared to the six-walk season debut, it’s a welcome improvement.
“I didn’t feel great in Tampa. I had a rough game,” Dickey said. “I had a clunker and it’s nice to get over that against a really good ballclub in the AL East.”
This time around he performed much better, reminding his catcher of the ace who won the 2012 National League Cy Young Award. “He was much more aggressive today than he was in the first game,” Thole said.
The uncertainty at the back of the Blue Jays rotation leaves them vulnerable to injuries and poor performances, so they need production from Dickey and Mark Buehrle. It’s unclear what the Blue Jays can count on from Brandon Morrow, who lasted just five innings in his season debut, or Dustin McGowan, who didn’t escape the third inning Friday. And no team can get away with shortened outings from its fourth and fifth starters if its frontline starters are also faltering. That’s why the Blue Jays rely on innings from Dickey to succeed, and why Saturday’s start provides manager John Gibbons with a measure of confidence going forward.
“This was a big game for us. We needed to bounce back,” Gibbons said. “He stepped up.”
It’s just one game, no more or less significant than opening day in the win column. That being said, Dickey’s outing provides the Blue Jays with some reassurances that the questions at the back of their rotation need not extend to the front of the rotation for the time being.