OLD TIME’S ACHE
TORONTO — The battle of old versus older wasn’t even close Thursday night, with 40yearold R.A. Dickey running circles around his former team and specifically Bartolo Colon.
On a night the 42yearold Colon was manhandled by the Blue Jays over 4 ¹/₃ innings, Dickey belted out a chorus of “Thanks for the Memories” to help sink the Mets 71 at Rogers Centre.
“I was happy that the young buck won tonight,” Dickey said after overcoming early control problems with his knuckleball and allowing one run over 7 ¹/₃ innings.
Dickey (36) surrendered only three hits, but walked five. It was the righthander’s first appearance against the Mets since they traded him to the Blue Jays following his 2012 NL Cy Young award season. As part of the deal, the Mets received Noah Syndergaard and Travis d’Arnaud.
Colon (95) was yanked with one out in the fifth, after Chris Colabello had homered to give the Blue Jays a 70 lead. The righthander’s final line included nine hits allowed and one walk on a night six of the seven runs against him were earned.
Thursday’s pitching matchup, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, was the first between two 40something pitchers since Jamie Moyer faced Greg Maddux in 2008.
The Mets (3632) extended their scoreless streak to 21 innings before Lucas Duda homered in the eighth. They will look to snap a twogame skid Friday when they face the Braves and return to the friendly environs of the NL East, in which they are 2312.
“We haven’t faced anybody like [Dickey] and we won’t face anybody like that the rest of the regular season,” Michael Cuddyer said. “You tip your hat and move on to a team that we’ve played quite a bit.”
But manager Terry Collins was frustrated with the team’s lack of execution, especially offensively.
“We’re playing a little sluggishly right now,” Collins said. “We need to find some energy.”
Collins indicated he may cancel batting practice Friday, with temperatures expected to reach the mid90s in Atlanta.
Colon was battered in the fourth, when he allowed five runs and buried the Mets into a 60 hole. But Colon might have escaped unscathed had Wilmer Flores correctly timed Kevin Pillar’s line drive that deflected off his glove to load the bases. Ezequiel Carrera was off first base on the play, and the Mets likely would have converted an inningending double play.
“If Flo catches the line drive, [Colon] is out of the inning and it’s a 10 game,” Collins said. “I know it knuckled on him, but we’ve got to make a concerted effort to pick each other up a little bit better than we have.”
Flores said he should have caught the ball, but he lost it because of the late knuckle.
The Blue Jays took a 20 lead on Ryan Goins’ RBI fielder’s choice. On the play, Pillar used a hard slide into second base that took out Flores, ensuring the shortstop had no chance to complete the double play.
“It’s not like it was a dirty slide, but he had to do what he had to do,” Flores said.
Jose Reyes then delivered an RBI single and Josh Donaldson followed with a double that made it 40. Jose Bautista completed the carnage in the inning with a two runsingle.
Dilson Herrera’s error on Colabello’s grounder in the second led to the Blue Jays scoring an unearned run on Pillar’s RBI single.
Colon said he had no issues with the team’s defense.
“They do a pretty good job behind me every time I pitch, so I’ve got no complaint,” Colon said. “Today was a different day and the ball was hard hit.”