Dickey baffles the Tigers
Jays win 7th in row at home
TORONTO — R. A. Dickey threw a faster floater, and that meant trouble for the Detroit Tigers.
The knuckleballer won again, Jose Reyes and Mark DeRosa homered and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the slumping Tigers 8-3 on Monday for their seventh straight home win.
The Blue Jays delighted a sellout crowd of 45,766 on Canada Day with their 11th victory in 13 games at Rogers Centre.
Coming off his two-hit shutout against Tampa Bay, Dickey (8- 8) was sharp and won for the third time in four starts.
The knuckleballer allowed two runs and six hits in seven innings, striking out four and walking one.
“Just another great outing,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “Second one in a row. I see more bite on his knuckleball than we’ve seen in the past a little bit.”
Plagued by back and neck soreness early in the season, Dickey has put those issues behind him and found increased velocity as a result.
“It’s been kind of a tough go getting it back,” Dickey said of his velocity. “I threw a knuckleball 81 miles an hour today, 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,” he said. “You can get away with a lot more mistakes when the velocity’s up there.”
Detroit slugger Prince Fielder said it was tough to track Dickey’s dancing pitches.
“It was knuckling,” Fielder said. “It’s hard for catchers to catch it, so imagine how hard it is to hit it.”
Reyes hit a leadoff shot in the third against Tigers rookie Jose Alvarez (1-2). For Reyes, it was his third homer of the year and second in two days.
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Rays 12, Astros 0 at Houston: Matt Moore allowed two hits in seven scoreless innings for his 11th win, and Ryan Roberts hit a pair of homers to give Tampa Bay a shutout of Houston.
Moore (11-3) won his third straight decision and is tied for second in wins among AL pitchers.
Yankees 10, Twins 4 at Minneapolis: Robinson Cano homered twice and Andy Pettitte broke Whitey Ford’s club record for career strikeouts to help New York snap a five-game skid with a victory over Minnesota.
Zoilo Almonte had three hits and two RBIs as the slumbering Yankees offense woke up with seven runs in the last two innings to reach double digits for the first time since May 10.
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Nationals 10, Brewers 5 at Washington: Bryce Harper homered on his first swing since coming off the disabled list and his Washington teammates quickly joined in, beating slumping Milwaukee.
After missing 31 games with bursitis in his left knee, the most lingering fallout from his collision with the Dodger Stadium wall, Harper energized the Nationals and sparked their second rout in two days.
Marlins 4, Padres 0 at Miami: Jose Fernandez struck out 10 and allowed only two hits in a careerhigh eight innings, and Miami matched a season high with its third consecutive victory by beating San Diego.
Jeff Mathis delivered the big hit for the second game in a row, raising his batting average to .154.
He hit a three-run double in the sixth, when the Marlins scored four unearned runs off Jason Marquis.
Mathis’ ninth-inning grand slam beat the Padres on Sunday.
Reds 8, Giants 1 (6 innings) at Cincinnati: Todd Frazier homered and drove in four runs, leading Cincinnati out of its offensive slump to a victory over San Francisco in a game shortened to six innings because of rain.
The umpires waited 1 hour, 28 minutes before calling it.