As the ball fluttered and jumped and dove out of the right hand of R.A. Dickey yesterday, it carried his hopes for the National League Cy Young award, the hope of the Mets’ first 20-game winner in 22 years and one last bit of light that could be drawn from another gloomy Mets season.
But the Mets being the Mets, the win wouldn’t come easily.
After their 4-0 lead over the Marlins was cut with a John Buck three-run homer in the ninth inning, the Mets managed to make everyone uncomfortable up to the last breath of a 4-3 victory, barely getting Dickey his much-deserved 19th win.
“It’s hard — you would see a lot of 20-game winners out there if it wasn’t hard,” Dickey said after he gave up two runs on six hits over eight-plus innings. “A lot of things have to go your way out there, and I’ll be the first one to say it.”
Cruising through eight innings with a four-run lead thanks in part to a second-inning two-run homer by — of all people — Jason Bay, Dickey convinced manager Terry Collins to send him back out for the ninth. But the knuckleballer walked Greg Dobbs on four pitches and allowed a double to Donovan Solano.
In came Jon Rauch, who served up a fastball to Buck that ricocheted off the foul pole in left field to incite some boos from what was until then an unexpectedly joyous crowd of 30,332 at Citi Field.
“There’s added pressure on every play [with Dickey on the mound],” said Collins, whose team clinched a winning home series for just the second time since the All-Star break, improving to 6-24 in Flushing during the second half. “The situation is almost like a no-hitter: Guys are willing to give themselves up to get an out, to save the game.”
With the win, Dickey took his league-leading ERA to 2.66 and took the league lead in strikeouts with 209. But the Nationals’ Gio Gonzalez became the game’s first 20-game winner yesterday, and the Reds’ Johnny Cueto and the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw have comparable numbers, so Dickey is far from a lock to become the first Mets pitcher to win the Cy Young since Dwight Gooden in 1985.
Dickey now has a chance to get that milestone 20th win at home Thursday against the sinking Pirates. He would be the sixth Mets pitcher to reach that plateau and the first to do so since Frank Viola in 1990.
“The fans have been so loyal to me all year and what a neat thing to share with them on that day,” said Dickey, who received many cheers throughout the day but none louder than when he barely missed hitting a grand slam in the sixth inning, only to be robbed by a leaping catch from Bryan Petersen against the left-field wall.
On Thursday, Collins called his team out, suggesting it quit in a 16-1 loss to the Phillies, and Friday he pulled Lucas Duda from the game after he failed to run hard to first on a pop-up. But with Dickey on the mound, all the frustration turned to opportunity, all the energy turned into rooting for something, someone, however fleetingly.
“There’s not a guy in that [clubhouse] that isn’t rooting for R.A.,” Collins said. “The organization should be very proud of the fact that they stuck with this guy.”
* Closer Frank Francisco, who still is recovering from an elbow injury, threw in the outfield before the game but was not available because of soreness. Collins said because of the setback he doubts Francisco will be available for today’s game.