Dickey delivers big against Tigers
Ace starter gets run support from fill-ins
TORONTO • Miguel Cabrera swung at a diving R.A. Dickey knuckleball and caught nothing but air for strike three in the fourth inning. Before walking back to the visiting dugout, the reigning American League MVP gave Dickey a nod for a job well done.
After a frustrating loss in Boston, with a bullpen taxed from a tough road trip and some hitters nursing injuries, Dickey delivered a second straight solid performance for the Blue Jays in Monday’s 8-3 win over the Tigers before a sellout Canada Day crowd at the Rogers Centre.
“The team’s beat up. The guys that played today came out and responded in a big way and it all started with Dickey,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said.
Toronto was without the services of Adam Lind and Edwin Encarnacion, who were out with back and hamstring issues, respectively. The offence responded with 10 hits, including home runs by Jose Reyes and Mark DeRosa — more than enough firepower in support of Dickey’s seven innings and two runs allowed.
Dickey was coming off his best start of the year — a twohit shutout in Tampa Bay on Wednesday. In an up-and-down season he has had difficulties with velocity and command — back and neck problems altered his mechanics — which have resulted in a 4.72 ERA heading into Monday. Those issues appeared to be a thing of the past against the Rays.
Dickey put his woes further behind him on Monday. He was not untouchable, but his performance had plenty in common with his sparkling start against the Rays, in which his knuckleball averaged 77 mph (it was down to 75.5 this year from 77.7 in 2012, according to PitchFX figures published at BrooksBaseball. net).
“The velocity’s come back. And it’s been kind of a tough go getting it back, but I threw a knuckleball at 81 miles an hour today,” Dickey said. “I threw a lot at 80 miles an hour. I threw an 85 mile-an-hour fastball. All those velocities are tops for the year.
“That’s the velocity I could count on last year. You can get away with a lot more mistakes when the velocity’s up there at 78 to 81.”
Indeed, according to the raw PitchFX data from Major League Baseball, Dickey threw nine knucklers at more than 80 mph and 14 at between 79 and 80.
Dickey finished his day having allowed two runs on six hits and a walk in seven innings. He struck out five and
I see more bite on his knuckleball than we may have seen in the past
threw one wild pitch. Both runs came in a three-hit fourth inning — the only time he was in any trouble.
“I see more bite on his knuckleball than we may have seen in the past. A little bit sharper,” Gibbons said. “And it’s in the zone. He’s consistently staying in the zone. “He’s on a nice little roll.” The Blue Jays’ 11-game win streak earlier this month put them five games behind division-leading Boston, but they dropped five of seven games on their recent road trip to Tampa Bay and Boston against divisional opponents expected to contend.
Their task got no easier back at home against the Tigers — a team with the league’s lowest starters’ ERA and tied for third in runs scored heading into Monday.
The Jays got off to a good start, though, in both the game and the series.
Toronto got on the board in the second inning against detroit starter Jose Alvarez when a single to shallow left field by second baseman Munenori Kawasaki scored third baseman Maicer Izturis, who had reached base on a single and advanced to third on a Josh Thole walk and a balk.
Reyes, playing his sixth game after missing more than two months with a high ankle sprain, whacked a changeup over the heart of the plate in the third inning over the wall for his second home run in as many days. Later in the inning, J.P. Arencibia, who was filling in for Encarnacion as the designated hitter, batted in a pair of runs with a single.
DeRosa, getting the start at first with Lind and Encarnacion out, hit his fifth homer of the season, a three-run blast in the fourth off reliever Luke Pitkonen. DeRosa, Gibbons said, would probably not even have played under normal circumstances after a neck strain cropped up on Sunday, but the Jays were already short-handed.
“We have to do our job, that’s why we’re here. you have to be ready at a moment’s notice,” DeRosa said of his role as a fillin. “Obviously you can’t replace eddie. you can’t replace the way Lindo’s swung the bat. I’m aware of that. But there’s guys here that are capable of, you know, doing the things they have to do to help us win.”
Toronto’s Steve Delabar pitched one scoreless inning and Aaron Loup allowed a solo shot to Tigers second baseman Omar Infante in the ninth.
With three games still to come against the Tigers — and doug Fister, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander on the mound for detroit — the Blue Jays would like Lind and Encarnacion back as soon as possible.