BOSTON – R.A. Dickey has a funny way of delivering remarkably consistent production.
Look closely and Dickey’s perplexing. One inning he can’t find the plate, the next he’s unhittable. One start he’s struggling, the next he’s dominant.
The further you zoom out, though, the easier it is to see Dickey’s value: Year after year, he provides quality innings in bulk.
“It’s a crazy pitch. It can come and go,” Blue Jays manager Gibbons said. “I’m still amazed at how he commands that thing the way he does, but he was really, really good again tonight.”
Friday was one of the nights where Dickey did more than just eat innings. He worked around five walks and two hits to limit the best offence in baseball to one unearned run in 6.2 innings, setting up a 5-2 Toronto Blue Jays win over the Boston Red Sox.
“They’re a smoking hot offence and he shut them down,” Gibbons said. “To borrow one of his words, it was a fabulous outing.”
“He was incredible tonight,” second baseman Devon Travis added. “That’s two really good outings in a row against the same ballclub — one of the best hitting ballclubs in the league. He had everything going.”
Even the occasional quick pitch, fastball and curve. Anything to keep the potent Red Sox lineup off-balance, on a night that Dickey had the daunting assignment of facing Boston for the fourth time this year and the second time in as many starts.
“I hate it really,” Dickey said. “I’m just being honest. That’s a really good lineup … You know you’re capable of silencing a very good offensive club like that. But it is not easy. Just like I’m gathering information, they are too. You always have to be evolving.”
Edwin Encarnacion hit a two-run shot way over the Green Monster to give the Blue Jays a lead before Dickey even stepped on the mound. Even more encouraging for the Blue Jays was Travis’ first home run since last July 28, a two-run homer in the eighth inning. The second baseman worked an 11-pitch at-bat against Koji Uehara before hammering one deep over the Monster.
“I think I forgot that feeling,” Travis said. “It was nice.”
Travis’ bat has already deepened the Blue Jays’ lineup. Even if he’s not a home run hitter along the lines of Encarnacion and Jose Bautista, he has provided the Blue Jays with an offensive spark.
“He has,” Dickey said. “And I think there are more sparks to come. That’s the beauty of this team.”
Dickey had help from his infielders early on, as Josh Donaldson made a bare-handed play and Darwin Barney made a leaping catch to save a base hit. Those plays helped Dickey take a no-hitter into the sixth inning against the Red Sox for the second consecutive start. Unlike the last time out, he finished as well as he started.
Xander Bogaerts’ 26-game hit streak ended for the Red Sox, who got much of their offence from David Ortiz: two doubles, a walk and a hit by pitch.
Despite some nervous moments in the late innings, Jason Grilli, Joe Biagini and Roberto Osuna closed it out for the Blue Jays, whose record improves to 30-26 thanks to a four-game win streak. Still, the Blue Jays have lots of work ahead.
“This division is really difficult,” Dickey said. “I mean Boston, Baltimore. Anybody on any given day is going to kick you in the teeth. We’ve got to keep the gas pedal down.”
Suddenly, Dickey’s 2016 numbers look quite respectable. He has now rebounded from his annual slow start to pitch to a 4.21 ERA over 72.2 innings. If those numbers seem familiar, it’s because he posted the exact same ERA in 2013, his first season in Toronto, before posting a 3.71 ERA in 2014 and a 3.91 ERA in 2015. Each year he’s pitched 210-plus innings and finished stronger than he started.
“The weather warms up, that ball starts to move around a little more,” Dickey said. “My last six starts, maybe, I’ve felt pretty good.”
He’s not Noah Syndergaard — not much question as to who won that deal any longer — but Dickey’s production helps the Blue Jays regardless. Consider that the average AL starter has a 4.39 ERA this year and Dickey’s 4.21 mark starts to look much better.
Even if Dickey were to post a league average ERA, as he did for his first three seasons in Toronto, that would help the Blue Jays immensely. After all, average starters are hard to come by — just ask the Red Sox, who lack answers in their rotation after optioning Joe Kelly to the minors and moving Clay Buchholz to the bullpen. For all of their offensive depth, the Red Sox don’t actually have five starters right now.
In that context, Dickey’s 200-inning 4.00 ERA template looks pretty good — just as long as you expect some accompanying ups and downs.