RA Deserves His Own Thread

[Frayed Knot]

What was surprising to me was that article I read that said the Mets were assholes for putting in the protest. Wha? Of course they should go through the motions? Why not?!

Well, the 'Why Not' is because, even if successful, it serves to boost the interests of one player but at the expense of another. And all of it for the purpose of creating a somewhat artificially contrived 'moment' that the team can celebrate.


Or, to put it another was, it's like on 'Scrubs' when Dr. Cox said to Elliot right after losing a patient just before his shift ended and she wanted to delay recording it until just after midnight:
"There's nothing wrong with a one-hitter, there, Barbie. In fact, it's miraculous. And I won't have you of all people cheapen what should be an endless pursuit of perfection just because you want the world to laugh with you tonight."

[Ceetar]

What was surprising to me was that article I read that said the Mets were assholes for putting in the protest. Wha? Of course they should go through the motions? Why not?! Well, the 'Why Not' is because, even if successful, it serves to boost the interests of one player but at the expense of another. And all of it for the purpose of creating a somewhat artificially contrived 'moment' that the team can celebrate. Or, to put it another was, it's like on 'Scrubs' when Dr. Cox said to Elliot right after losing a patient just before his shift ended and she wanted to delay recording it until just after midnight: "There's nothing wrong with a one-hitter, there, Barbie. In fact, it's miraculous. And I won't have you of all people cheapen what should be an endless pursuit of perfection just because you want the world to laugh with you tonight."

Actually, Collins put it this way:

"We think it might've been an error because David usually makes that play. Since he's so good, when he doesn't make that play it's natural to assume it might be an error."



Phyllis Merhige

[batmagadanleadoff]

Otherworldly Pitch Meets Its Jedi Master
By TYLER KEPNER
Published: June 16, 2012

In the far corner of the Mets� clubhouse at Citi Field, propped against the wall near the showers, is a fan�s painting of R. A. Dickey as an alien. On the shelf in Dickey�s locker, next to his usual passel of hardbacks, is a stuffed Yoda, from �Star Wars,� knitted for him by a fan. Leave it to Dickey to revel in the supernatural. He has been, perhaps, the most dependable starter in the National League this season, doing it almost exclusively with the game�s most capricious pitch. As Dickey prepares to throw his knuckleball, he imagines two portals between him and the catcher. Both are vertical rectangles, the first for his body, the second for his pitch. Moving so reliably through them has transported Dickey to a place even baseball�s greatest knuckleballer, Phil Niekro, never knew. �I had a few streaks, but nothing like he�s going through,� said Niekro, a Hall of Famer with 318 victories. �I don�t know if any other knuckleballer has ever been on a hot streak like he has been. He is just dynamite right now.� In his last start, a one-hitter Wednesday at Tampa Bay, Dickey broke Jerry Koosman�s club record for consecutive scoreless innings. An unearned run in the ninth snapped the streak at 322/3 innings, but Dickey has still allowed no earned runs since May 22. He is 10-1 for the season, with a 2.20 earned run average. Before Dickey started throwing the knuckleball, in 2005, he knew that if his mechanics were sound, his pitches would obey. As a knuckleballer, he said, he does not know precisely where they will go. But he knows he can throw them for strikes. �Imagine a vertical shoe box,� Dickey said Friday. �Well, if I start at the top of the vertical shoe box, it may drop to the right corner or it may drop to the left corner, or it may go anywhere in between inside that shoe box. It�s still a strike; I just don�t know where it�s going to be a strike. �And it�s also visual for me. That shoe box is a miniature version of what I try to go through mechanically, in a door frame. So I�m going from a door frame to a shoe box, but they�re both similar. It�s almost like they�re just kind of coming together.� For many years, Dickey struggled for the same kind of order in his life. Jagged pieces never seemed to come together. He exposed it all recently in his gripping memoir, �Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball,� a searingly personal book that describes his sexual abuse as a child; his failings as a husband; his thoughts of suicide; and his religious faith. It also describes his career, and his evolution as a pitcher. The Texas Rangers suggested Dickey try the knuckleball, and Orel Hershiser, their pitching coach at the time, said his recent success was no fluke. �I believe it will continue,� Hershiser said, �because I know the person.� To know Dickey is to root for him. He is polite, engaging and open-minded, with no pretense or airs. Steve Sparks, a knuckleballer for five teams from 1995 to 2004, said Dickey fits in with the knuckleballing family. Most who throw it, Sparks said, are easygoing people with the inner calm to trust a slow pitch under pressure. �You can�t go out there with too much adrenaline,� Sparks said. �It�s kind of like an exaggerated game of catch in the backyard, and some guys are not wired that way.� Dickey�s wiring may run hotter than the rest. When Hershiser and the Rangers converted him, the plan was for Dickey to imitate Tim Wakefield of the Boston Red Sox. Initially, Dickey said, that sounded fine; he had never approached Wakefield�s success. But the more he practiced the pitch � sometimes 500 throws at a time, he said � Dickey realized he was not suited to throw a knuckleball 65 miles an hour like Wakefield�s. In a period of deep personal growth off the field, Dickey said, he had to be true to himself. �I had to risk something,� Dickey said. �I had to say, �O.K., the Rangers want me to throw it slow, and they�re the ones giving me the opportunity, so I better do that� � and then finally getting to the place where you just don�t care. You just want it to be you. And a lot of that paralleled my growth as a human being.� Dickey called his pitch an angry knuckleball, not a butterfly, and its speed may separate him from every practitioner who came before. Dickey�s knuckler has averaged 77 m.p.h. this season, according to the Inside Edge Scouting Service, and he has thrown it from 54 m.p.h. to 83 m.p.h. Such a wide range of speeds has been a long time coming. Dickey said it was not until late in the 2010 season � his sixth year throwing the knuckleball � that he could confidently leave his baseline velocity. Now, he is throwing 17 percent of his knuckleballs outside the range of 70 m.p.h. to 79 m.p.h., while moving his vertical shoe box up and down, in and out. �He�s got both dimensions now, a hard one and a soft one,� Hershiser said, adding that such diversity helps Dickey escape big innings. �He�s not backed into a corner like a conventional knuckleballer.� Hitters have no idea what kind of knuckleball � or occasional low-80s fastball � to expect from Dickey, and they never face another pitcher quite like him. But if the knuckleball is so baffling, shouldn�t more pitchers throw it? Dickey is the only knuckleballer in the majors, and the game has rarely seen more than a small handful at one time. Scouts will always be drawn to hard throwers, Niekro said, but Hershiser made a different point: the pitch is deceptively difficult to learn. �Everybody who�s ever held a baseball has tried to throw a knuckleball, but they�re doing it on flat ground,� said Hershiser, an analyst for ESPN. �Your feet are level, and you can push the ball because your base is stable. �You can take the left fielder for the Tampa Bay Rays and play catch with him, and he�ll make it move and take the spin off it. You can take the shortstop for the Boston Red Sox and tell him to throw some knuckleballs, and he�ll do it. But when you get on a mound and put a hitter up there with a strike zone, that�s the hardest part.� Dickey learned by throwing thousands of knuckleballs against a cinder block wall in his uncle�s gym in Nashville. When he drove, he kept his left hand on the steering wheel and gripped a baseball with his right. He sought advice from masters like Niekro, Wakefield and Charlie Hough. He wandered through four organizations � Texas, Milwaukee, Seattle and Minnesota � before the Mets, who made him the first cut of spring training in 2010. The perfect knuckleball still eludes him, Dickey said. He doubts he will ever perfect anything in his life, much less his signature pitch. �I don�t think we ever learn the whole deal about the knuckleball,� Niekro said. �In my last year, I was still trying to figure it out.� Niekro retired at 48. Dickey is 37, and has pitched his whole career without an ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow. There is no telling how long he can last, how many more years he can make the unpredictable trustworthy. The process is the fun part, Dickey said, and he means it. He has slain personal demons and scaled Mount Kilimanjaro, but the quest for knuckleball mastery never ends. The tools of the pursuit are nothing more otherworldly than effort, curiosity and drive. �As mystic as the pitch seems, there�s no mysticism in how to make it controllable,� Dickey said. �It�s just putting in the time.�

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/sports/baseball/r-a-dickey-master-of-the-knuckler.html?pagewanted=all

[Zvon]

^Great article.
Thanks for sharing

[Edgy MD]

I'm perfectly OK with Collins acting as an advocate for Dickey there. That's part of his job. I heard an interview with him and he was asked whether he thought the appeal had a chance and frankly said, "No, I really don't."

He could have been a little coyer, but he certainly wasn't pretending to be unaware or the reality of the situation.

[TransMonk]

I might be wrong, but it looks to me like Dickey will line up to pitch Sunday night in front of the whole Yankee felatiating world. I'm hoping it is a nice national spotlight for his All-Star starting hopes.

ESPN must be cheezing in their shorts about that.

[seawolf17]

I'll openly admit that I was wrong. I didn't think Dickey was worth the money; I thought he was just waiting to fall off the table. But holy hell, this guy has been unreal. I apologize, RA, for doubting you.

[Edgy MD]

And lots of it.

[TransMonk]

Sign RA Now!

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy DC wrote:

TransMonk wrote: Sign RA Now

So what you guys are saying is that we should


... wait for it ...



Sew him up!

[G-Fafif]

"It was fairly poetic, I thought."

R.A. on beating Buck Showalter's team, since Showalter urged him to become a full-time knuckleballer and then, essentially, told him to take a hike as Texas manager six years ago after R.A. had a historically bad start against Detroit.

[metirish]

Buck was pissed in his post game when asked about Dickey , not at R.A. but that his team got shutout.

[metsmarathon]

said minimm after watching the end of last night's game, "i like r.a. dickey"

[G-Fafif]

�It's surreal. You almost get emotional out there, especially that last hitter. You hear everybody, like one big heartbeat beating. That's the best way I could explain it.''

[Ceetar]

G-Fafif wrote: �It's surreal. You almost get emotional out there, especially that last hitter. You hear everybody, like one big heartbeat beating. That's the best way I could explain it.''

That was probably in response to the "R. A. Dickey!" chants.

[nymr83]

From Adam Rubin:

Since earned runs were first kept as a statistic in 1912 in the NL and 1913 in the AL, only four other pitchers have compiled 11-plus wins, a sub-2.50 ERA and more than one strikeout per inning through their first 14 starts of a season: Francisco Liriano (Minnesota, 2006), Randy Johnson (Arizona, 2000), Pedro Martinez (Boston, 1999) and Sandy Koufax (Los Angeles, 1966), Elias reported.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Three of those names are very impressive. I'm afraid that I'm drawing a blank on Francisco Liriano. Was he, is he, any good?

[Frayed Knot]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I'm afraid that I'm drawing a blank on Francisco Liriano. Was he, is he, any good?

Briefly

[Ceetar]

Frayed Knot wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: I'm afraid that I'm drawing a blank on Francisco Liriano. Was he, is he, any good? Briefly

One of those young phenoms that took baseball by storm and then faded quickly. Edison Volquez. Dontrelle Willis. those types of guys.


Or maybe he just can't pitch without Johan. flyer?

[Lefty Specialist]

Updated- last 6 starts

W-L 6-0 (3 CG Shutouts)
ERA 0.18
IP 47.2
IP/Start 7.94
H 21
BB 5
K 63
ER 1
WHIP 0.54
K/9 11.90
H/9 3.97
BB/9 0.94 (this actually went UP)
K/BB 12.66

[Benjamin Grimm]

I just posted this on the UMDB Facebook page:

(Dickey is) only the second Mets pitcher, ever, to have a record of 11-1 AT ANY POINT IN THE SEASON. The only other 11-1 pitcher was Terry Leach, who won his 11th game, against one loss, on September 8, 1987. That ended up being Leach's final decision of the year. He was 7-1 as a starter and had four wins in relief.

[Edgy MD]

Lefty Specialist wrote: Updated- last 6 starts W-L 6-0 (3 CG Shutouts) ERA 0.18 IP 47.2 IP/Start 7.94 H 21 BB 5 K 63 ER 1 WHIP 0.54 K/9 11.90 H/9 3.97 BB/9 0.94 (this actually went UP) K/BB 12.66

Yeah, I was actually disappointed that R.A. walked a few. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?!

[Ceetar]

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120618&content_id=33530502&vkey=news_nym&c_id=nym&partnerId=rss_nym

Marty Noble has an article on Hofstra's Olivia Galati, a knuckleball softball player.

[Edgy MD]

What must it be like to be a 12-year-old Met fan witnessing this sort of run?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Posting on the road from my smartphome ... what a pain in the ass.

Dickey's game score last night -96. RA is 1st pitcher in live ball era with consecutive game scores of 95 or more.

[metirish]

Edgy DC wrote: What must it be like to be a 12-year-old Met fan witnessing this sort of run?

I imagine a lot of pride for a young Mets fan right now.

[Benjamin Grimm]

But less perspective. The older you are, the more you appreciate how rare something like this is.

[G-Fafif]

At 12, with Seaver, Koosman and Matlack, I assumed such Mets pitching was the norm. It was the rare Randy Tate great start that got me extra excited.

[Frayed Knot]

In addition to now leading the league among qualifying pitchers in ERA, Winning Pct, CGs, Shutouts (tied), Quality Start Pct (13 of 14), Strike-outs and WHiP, last night's win also makes RA 52-51 for his career and puts him above .500 for the first time since May of '04 when he was 13-12
Even winning his first six decisions as a Met in 2010 only got him back to .500 but never above. He's 30-23 as a Met.


Lowest avg pitches/inning as well at 13.9

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Most books sold too.