Mets 4, Marlins 3: Fish Humbled By Effective Dickey

R.A. Dickey has made four starts since being called up and has gone at least six innings in each, a pleasant departure from the abbreviated efforts of Messrs. Maine and Perez. Dickey has been fantastic just once -- his six-inning start in an eventual shutout of the Phillies during the goose-egg sweep -- but he has been at minimum solid-to-good, and that's a perfectly reasonable return for a back of the rotation starter. He's making practically no money and expectations of him are appropriately limited. And he's a knuckleballer to boot, which is still a novelty in baseball and an utter fascination of mine. Given two roughly equivalent pitchers, who wouldn't take the knuckler? Every day of the week we're treated to fastballs, curves, changeups, and sliders, the velocities and trajectories of which are generally within the spectrum of predictability. The beauty of the knuckleball is in its unpredictability -- to viewers, to the catcher, even to Dickey himself. Yes, I'm thrilled to say: More Dickey, please!

Game-wise, here's the low-down.

• Dickey went 6.1 innings, allowed nine baserunners (seven hits, two walks) and three runs; he struck out four.
• They didn't make a big deal of it in the booth, but I thought Chris Coghlan's takeout slide in the seventh inning was just a teensy bit scummy. I think it's perfectly reasonable to take out a guy at his legs provided your own legs are in something approaching a sliding position. Replays clearly showed Coghlan raising his leg to a point around Reyes's knee just before the moment of impact. To me, that's traipsing on "intent to injure" territory.
• Jeff Francoeur remained hot -- rawrrr -- going 2-for-4 with an RBI. He also grounded into a double play.
• Ruben Tejada, called into action after the Mets placed Luis Castillo on the disabled list with a broken OPS, went 1-for-4 and drove in a run on a fielder's choice. The one hit was a double, his first extra-base hit in the bigs.
• Ike Davis went 0-for-4 and is in a deep slump. His OPS has dropped almost 100 points -- from .882 to .783 -- since May 20.
• David Wright didn't strike out, so the pledge-o-meter (now displayed on the left sidebar) stays put.
• Elmer Dessens tossed an inning and a third of scoreless relief and has quickly become a favorite of Jerry Manuel's. I'd normally quibble with the judgment of someone who bases that kind of decision on five innings of work, but considering how lamentable the rest of the bullpen has been I think I'll just let this one slide.
• Francisco Rodriguez -- cripes, man. On the other hand: ah jeez. To be fair, Rodriguez threw 76 pitches on Tuesday and Wednesday against the Padres so he may be a tad fatigued. I'll give him a pass on this one.
• Hanley Ramirez grounded out to Wright to end the game, but he dogged it coming out of the box and Gary Cohen let him have it. From a hundred feet away and totally out of earshot, but he sure gave him the business.

John Niese returns to the rotation on Saturday when the Mets take on Nate Robertson and the Marlins at 4:10pm EDT.

Beer of the game: Terrapin Rye Pale Ale from Terrapin Beer Company, Athens, Georgia.

"Flavor is so smooth. Does not exhaust the taste buds or grow boring. Malts and hops are perfectly balanced. Some slight biscuits. The rye gives it all a nice sourness that matches with the sweet and the bitters. Slightly dry mouthfeel that leaves you looking forward to the next sip." --BeerAdvocate User Review

Poem by Howard Megdal

Mets get another strong outing from Dickey
But other eight outs are where things got tricky
Pedro is hittable, Elmer is glue
K-Rod makes us hold our breath until blue

SB Nation Coverage

* Traditional Recap
* Boxscore
* Amazin' Avenue Gamethread
* FishStripes Gamethread

Win Probability Added

Big winners: Elmer Dessens, +21.4% WPA, Francisco Rodriguez, +15.8% WPA
Big losers: Angel Pagan, -25.0% WPA, Ike Davis, -9.1% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Ramirez ground out to end game, +19.9% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Pagan GIDP in third, -12.9% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +34.8% WPA
Total batter WPA: +15.2% WPA
GWRBI!: Ruben Tejada

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by astromets; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.