Middlebrooks hit three home runs, two off NL Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey, and the Red Sox routed the Toronto Blue Jays 13-0.That's the crazy part about the knuckleball. When it's on, it's on. When it's off, it's really off. He'll come around eventually, but man, those games are painful.
"He had about 2,000 feet of homers," Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester said of Middlebrooks. "He obviously feels pretty good at the plate. It's fun to watch."Middlebrooks went 4 for 5 with four RBIs. He hit two home runs off Dickey, a two-run shot to right in the first inning and a solo drive into the second deck in left in the fifth. He connected again off Dave Bush with a leadoff longball to left in the seventh, the first three-homer game of his career.Mike Napoli added a two-run shot, and Jacoby Ellsbury and Daniel Nava also went deep as the Red Sox connected for six homers and set season highs for runs and hits (15), one day after getting just two hits in a 5-0 loss.....Boston jumped on Dickey in the first, scoring five runs before the knuckleballer had recorded an out.Ellsbury led off with a double, Shane Victorino singled to center and Pedroia drove in a run with a groundball single through the right side.Napoli hit a two-run double and Middlebrooks followed with a first pitch homer to right.Even the outs Dickey got were loud. Nava and Jarrod Saltalamacchia each flied out to the warning track before Jackie Bradley Jr. struck out to end the inning.Dickey (0-2) allowed eight runs -- seven earned -- and 10 hits in 4 2/3 innings. It was his shortest start and the most runs he'd allowed since giving up eight runs in 4 1/3 innings of a 14-6 loss at Atlanta last April 18, when he pitched for the New York Mets."Throughout the course of the season you're going to have a clunker or two," Dickey said. "You just have to try and forget it as soon as you can. Obviously today was one of those days for me."The five first-inning runs allowed by Dickey matched the amount he gave up in the first inning in all of 2012, when he made 33 starts.
Monday, April 8, 2013
A Rough Start
R.A. Dickey is struggling to start up the season:
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Doesn't Toronto play indoors? If so, his knuckleball will NEVER "come around." It only works outside on warm summer days and occasionally evenings.
ReplyDeleteOnly a bunch of Hosers would have spent big money to play a knuckleballer indoors. Yep. Toronto—the city that can't even get hockey right.
Their roof is retractable. It's usually closed at this time of year. And Toronto has no shortage of warm summer days, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteThough yeah, they can't get it right with the Leafs. They give some nice comedy for the rest of us.
Dickey will come around, but he'll probably never recapture last year's magic.
ReplyDeleteAs for Toronto sports, I will never be able to get over that there was a sex abuse ring preying on kids trying to get into Maple Leaf Garden.