Dickey drops ball against Tigers
Another lacklustre outing from his starting rotation should spur Jays GM Anthopoulos to find some help
DETROIT— If Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos was not already at warp speed in terms of obtaining another major-league starting pitcher via trade, then the last trip around his team’s rotation over the past five days should serve as a catalyst.
This team needs help, and well before the deadline.
“(R.A. Dickey’s) run into the top dogs, that’s for sure,” manager John Gibbons said. “What are you going to do? Just keep them in check and hopefully your offence comes through for you. But when you’re facing those types of guys, then they’ll limit you somewhat themselves. The luck of the draw.” Dickey went just 52⁄ innings, allowing
3 five runs on 11 hits with two walks and a strikeout in Toronto’s 8-3 loss. He also hit two Tigers. It was the fifth time in his career he has allowed 11 hits in a start. He admitted his specialty pitch was not producing enough swings and misses to be effective.
“I just didn’t have a real good feel for it today,” Dickey said. “It was probably one of the worst knuckleballs I’ve had all year. I was just trying to play with them with speeds and do the best I could to pitch around a bad knuckleball and it’s hard to do. You kind of feel naked out there when that’s your main pitch and you’re not getting the movement that you hope to get on it.”
In the last tour through the Jays’ fiveman rotation, the combined numbers show a 1-4 record with a 9.15 ERA — 20 earned runs in 192⁄ innings. Only Mark
3 Buehrle has managed to win or pitch at least six innings over that stretch. Dickey is the other pitcher to work at least five. Marco Estrada went 21⁄ disappointing
3 innings against the Red Sox. Matt Boyd failed to retire any of his seven batters, and Drew Hutchison gave up seven runs and 10 hits in 42⁄ innings.
3 “I don’t think anybody’s panicking,” Dickey said. “We’ve had a tough few days with the rotation, but at the same time we all now what we’re capable of.
“We’ve done it before already this year. It’s just a matter of being consistent throughout a 162-game season. We have a lot of guys with a lot of experience in here. Nobody’s panicking. We’re right there, so we’re okay.”
Among those five starters, Hutchison is the one the Jays should be most concerned about. Forget the wins and losses, as he is 8-2. More concerning is the lack of depth into games in terms of innings he is giving his team on most nights, and the inconsistency bordering on less than level MLB average. On Friday, Hutchison failed to finish five innings for the fifth time in 2015. In nine road starts, he is 2-1 with a 9.00 ERA, allowing 42 earned runs in as many innings.
“We’ve all seen him really, really good,” Gibbons reassured. “There’s no doubt he struggled at times, but it’s not like he’s never had success up here.
“There’s a difference. There’s a big difference. He has to keep working at it. We saw there were times, like going back to last year, then it turned for him. He finished really, really strong. There’s a huge difference in never having success and ( just that) he’s struggling. We’ve seen him throw shutouts, complete games.”
In terms of internal options, the Jays have tried Scott Copeland and Boyd. They gave Daniel Norris the first chance in the opening day five. They now have former Red Sox starter Felix Doubront poised for a Tuesday start as the fifth wheel, but with Hutchison still a head-scratcher, Estrada needing to re-establish his forward momentum and with Dickey encountering stiff opposition, it’s S.O.S. time.
As for Aaron Sanchez, if the plan is to return him to the rotation, it will be another three weeks from the time he steps on a mound in game action to get him stretched out enough to rejoin the starters.
Facing Price, who has now run his career record against the Jays to 16-2 in 21 starts, Dickey needed to hold the Tigers in check early to give the Jays a chance. Instead, he hit Ian Kinsler leading off and allowed a double to Yoenis Cespedes. After an RBI groundout by Victor Martinez, J.D. Martinez smashed a three-run blast.
The Tigers added another run while batting around in the first. In his nine losses this season, the knuckleballer has received just 19 runs in support. That makes it difficult to win. “If I don’t hit Kinsler with an 0-2 count, first batter of the game, that changes the whole complexion of that inning,” Dickey said. “You never know where the outing might go. That first inning was rough. But after that I settled in a little bit. I was pitching out of trouble OK. I can’t really pinpoint it. Sometime you just have clunkers and today was one of those games for me. We’ll just keep going.”
The Jays scored their first run on a solo homer by centre fielder Kevin Pillar in the fifth. First baseman Chris Colabello added a meaningless two-run homer in the ninth. The Jays have now lost six of their last eight games and are 8-11 since ending their 11-game winning streak.
The next move belongs to Anthopoulos.