Dreams only come true if you believe. The Mets believe in R.A. Dickey and much more.
If the 38-32 Mets win Subway Series II, it can catapult them into the heart of summer and then anything is possible, including a trip to the postseason.
That’s what believing does for a team.
Dickey, this mad scientist of a knuckleballer, has taken the pressure off the Mets’ offense, bullpen and Johan Santana. Dickey has won 11 games already and in his last two starts fluttered back-to-back one-hitters, something that has been done only five other times the past 78 years.
If the Mets can win one of these first two games against the Yankees, they believe they will win the series because Dickey is going Sunday in a nationally televised game against CC Sabathia at Citi Field.
A win for Dickey there and you could be looking at the NL All-Star starter and a summer of possibilities for the Mets.
When Dickey started the 2010 season at Triple-A Buffalo, no one could have predicted he would be in line for starting the All-Star Game in 2012. Dreams do come true and Dickey is putting the Mets on the map for something other than Bernie Madoff.
“It’s almost like that’s a match made in heaven, him, and his personality and the knuckleball,’’ David Wright told The Post. “It takes a lot of intelligence to figure out that kind of game plan and I would say that 99 percent of pitchers in baseball probably don’t have the wherewithal in them, the knowledge of physics and everything else to have success throwing the knuckleball.
“It’s not dumb luck that he just figured out a good knuckleball,” added Wright, who is hitting .358. “I guarantee you there is some sort of physics or science that he’s done to figure out the trajectory with the spin, with the velocity. I’m sure there’s been some sort of equations to figure out what the best knuckleballs in the best situations are. It sounds funny but I guarantee there is some kind of scientific method behind his success.’’
So much so that manager Terry Collins told me Dickey will tell his catchers Josh Thole or Mike Nickeas, “ ‘I want to go down and in on this guy,’ he actually plans for it to break down and in and it does,’’ Collins said. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.’’
When I said all this to the Yankees’ Raul Ibanez, a former teammate of Dickey’s with the Mariners, Ibanez’s eyes widened: “I’m glad that you mentioned that because I felt when I faced him in the past he was doing that. Sometimes the catchers were moving in and then moving away and I said to my teammates, ‘You know what? I think he’s doing that on purpose.’ And they said, ‘No, he’s not, he can’t control the knuckleball that way.’ But I felt he was using it like a slider, like a changeup.
“There’s an art to it,’’ said Ibanez, who is hitting .320 with three home runs and only two strikeouts in 25 at-bats against Dickey. His approach against Dickey is simple: “Don’t try to make too much of it,’’ Ibanez said. “Get a good pitch and square it up.
“He’s so cerebral, such a deep thinker. He ponders stuff for such a long time. He’s a good man, which is my highest compliment. He’s a great pitcher, but he’s a great person.’’
Winning is contagious and the Mets are winning.
“That’s all really I think about, how can I be a dependable product for the Mets and trustworthy,’’ Dickey told me.
The Dickey-Santana 1-2 punch is powerful and as Dickey noted: “It also gives the team a kind of breath. ‘We got a good shot here today, Johan is going, R.A. is going.’ ’’
If the Mets can win Subway Series II, it means they would have stormed through the last three series they played against the mighty AL East. Monday they have Santana going against the Cubs at Wrigley Field.
Let the dreams continue.