WHAT A SCREAM! R.A. Dickey improved to 6-0 on the season, throwing eight innings in the Mets’ 5-0 win over the Tigers last night at Citi Field. (Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post)
If R.A. Dickey keeps this up, you can expect struggling pitchers throughout the minors to start trying to learn the knuckleball.
Dickey, who was just another 35-year-old minor leaguer trying to resurrect his career only five short weeks ago, won for the sixth straight time last night in the Mets’ 5-0 victory over the Tigers at Citi Field.
And he did it in impressive fashion, shutting out Detroit over eight innings as he continues to baffle opposing hitters.
About the only thing he didn’t do was finish the game — a decision that Jerry Manuel made after closer Francisco Rodriguez said he needed an inning to stay in form.
“It was a difficult, difficult decision to make,” Manuel said. “To deprive a guy of a complete game shutout … but if we don’t do that and we fall back into not having [Rodriguez] sharp, that’s not a good thing.”
Dickey said he wanted to stay out for the ninth, but understood the move.
“If it helps us win ballgames, I’m all for it,” said Dickey, who improved to 6-0.
The Mets can’t ask for anything more than Dickey has given them.
With the victory, the Mets improved to 12-1 in their last 13 at Citi Field, where they are now 26-10 on the season.
Dickey had Detroit off-balance for much of the game. And even when the Tigers threatened, Dickey, as he so often has since joining the Mets last month, escaped unscathed. He didn’t allow more than one base runner in an inning after the first and retired the last 13 batters he faced. He also allowed just one Tiger to get on after Johnny Damon’s single in the third and struck out four while walking two.
And Dickey did all this while rarely even cracking the mid-80s on the radar gun with any of his 97 pitches and with a manager who now trusts him much more than when he came up.
“I saw him in spring training and when they made the call that he was the hot guy, I was a little concerned,” Manuel said. “I said, ‘OK, here we go.’ “
Manuel and the rest of the Mets couldn’t have imagined what they were getting.
“I didn’t feel real good from the beginning, but it evolved into a pretty good knuckleball,” Dickey said. “I’ve learned to change speeds and still be effective.”
And Dickey also has gained the trust of Manuel.
“He’ll have to have a number of bad [starts] to be taken out of the rotation,” Manuel said. “I think he has earned that right.”
Jose Reyes sparked the offense, going 3-for-4, while scoring three runs and coming up just a double shy of the cycle. Ike Davis’ two-run single in the seventh capped off a three-run inning that sealed the Tigers’ fate.
Reyes scored the game’s first run in the third, when he started it off with a single to center, then stole second and scored on David Wright’s double down the left field line. It was Wright’s 17th RBI in his last 12 games.
Reyes homered in the fifth off Jeremy Bonderman to give the Mets a 2-0 lead. The Mets improved to 28-7 when Reyes scored at least one run.
Dickey pitched into trouble in the first, loading the bases but got out of it without allowing a run.
Now five years after dedicating himself to the knuckleball, it is paying serious dividends — for both Dickey and the Mets.