Two abysmally bad baseball teams, the Astros and Mets, collided at Citi Field yesterday.
But one of them, the Mets, came to the park with R.A. Dickey, and even though he wore down and didn’t have his best stuff, that pretty much was the difference.
Dickey, who drove in the first Mets run, retired the first 10 batters he faced and wound up allowing five singles and one run for his 16th win, a 3-1 victory over bumbling Houston before 29,906 largely bored souls who couldn’t find a train wreck to watch and showed up at Citi Field instead. The Mets broke a six-game losing streak and another embarrassing stretch — seven straight games scoring two runs or less.
“One thing I felt like I did, I threw strikes with it. I didn’t have a great knuckleball,” said Dickey, who admitted to manager Terry Collins he was gassed after seven innings.
So the Mets’ offensive explosion came from getting a Dickey infield RBI single when Houston’s pitcher and catcher ran into each other; a solo homer from Justin Turner, who hadn’t homered in more than a year; and an RBI single by Jason Bay, who broke an 0-for-14 funk. In related news, Elvis was elected mayor of Peoria.
“I’m just happy for R.A.,” said Turner, who last homered on Aug. 6, 2011. “I guess three’s the magic number. We got three today. We got the ‘W.’ He pitched his butt off again like he has all year and took it upon himself to drive the first run in and take the pressure off the offense, and we got enough today.”
Dickey delivered his hit in the fourth, Turner homered in the sixth and after Houston got one back with a wild pitch in the seventh, the beleaguered Bay lined his run-producer to right to provide a little breathing room for Frank Francisco to pitch the ninth and earn his 21st save. Jon Rauch and Josh Edgin combined on a perfect eighth inning after Dickey admitted the humidity and his legs wore him down after seven.
“The way we’ve been going, I wasn’t going to go out there half-tanked,” Dickey said.
“He said, ‘I’m starting to lose it. The knuckleball’s starting to come up,’ ” Collins said. “We think this guy’s invincible. He’s starting to get as run-down as anybody else … That’s the type of guy he is. He knows it’s about the team and said. ‘I’m starting to lose it.’ ”
So Dickey (16-4) is keeping his shot at 20 wins very much alive, although he didn’t seemed overly pumped at the prospect.
“I haven’t thought about it,” he said.
Dickey staked himself to a 1-0 lead in the fourth. With two out and Ronny Cedeno on third, Dickey unleashed a roller that went about 10 feet. Houston starter and loser Fernando Abad (0-1), who was recalled earlier in the day and made his first big-league start, and catcher Jason Castro banged into each other, allowing Dickey to reach and Cedeno to score.
Justin Turner hit his home run in the sixth for a 2-0 cushion. Houston’s lone run against Dickey came in the seventh, when Scott Moore was hit by a pitch and eventually scored on a wild pitch. Dickey escaped harm in the fifth and seventh with short-to-second-to-first double plays.
The first double play came through a great turn at second by Cedeno in an inning that saw a balk call against Dickey reversed, thus likely preserving a run. The reversal made it first and second, then Turner made a nice stop at first keeping Brian Bogusevic’s hit of the infield variety. With the bases loaded, pinch hitter Steve Pearce rapped to Ruben Tejada with Cedeno taking the hit at second but firing to first.
“We wouldn’t be celebrating a win today if it wasn’t for defense,” said Dickey.
“This is a big win for us,” Collins said. “It’s a start. We’ve still got 35 games to play or whatever and let’s go win 25 of them.”