Blue Jays fall to Chris Archer, Rays in Tampa

By Neal Nachman
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Updated: June 24, 2015

R.A. Dickey didn’t get the win here Tuesday night against the Tampa Bay Rays but his performance was a triumph all the same.

Pitching with a heavy heart since his father passed away a week ago, Dickey put on as gutsy and determined an effort as you are going to see despite the Rays’ 4-3 victory behind a tremendous pitching effort of their own from Chris Archer.

“It’s been kind of a tough week for me,” Dickey said after his inspiring seven-inning performance, the second solid outing he’s had since his father passed. “I was able to prepare the way I do, I was to repeat my mechanics, and my velocity was good, so that way it wasn’t much of an issue.”

Dickey was making the start after returning to his native Nashville last weekend to attend the funeral of his father, Harold, who passed away suddenly from a heart attack.

Tuesday’s start was actually the second for Dickey since his father’s passing; he made a wonderful start in Toronto five days ago — less than two days after originally learning of his father’s passing — and internalized the news until the day after he pitched.

“I’m not ready to relive it yet,” he said, in asking the media to refrain from asking him about his emotions and feelings from the past week. “I can say this about the organization and my teammates — the support I received was some of the classiest moves I’ve ever been associated with in baseball. They made me feel good, the guys carried me.”

Dickey was placed on bereavement leave the day after that Toronto start, and said through the team he pitched two days after his father’s death in honour and memory of his father.

Major League Baseball allows players up to seven days leave while on the bereavement allowance but for Dickey, the path of action he chose was to honour his family and the game by not missing a beat in the rotation.

“I honestly don’t know how he did it,” Jays manager John Gibbons said at the time of that Toronto start.

Upon his return to the team Monday in Tampa, Dickey was to speak with the media. But he asked instead if he could save his comments until after Tuesday’s start so he wouldn’t have to repeat his feelings and rehash the events of his father’s death.

In private he said he was doing okay, but wasn’t certain how he’d feel taking the mound Tuesday night.

Dickey took a host of feelings — much of his relationship with his father was detailed in his autobiography — to the mound, and turned in seven innings on eight hits and three runs.

In his best-selling autobiography, Wherever I Wind Up, Dickey talked about a close father and son relationship in his early years, when he’d watch his father play baseball and share a game of catch with his son.

The elder Dickey turned down a $2,000 offer from the Cincinnati Reds in 1974, shortly after Dickey was born, so he could finish his education and support his family, the Blue Jay wrote in his book.

His parents divorced when he was 8, and Dickey and his father became distant as the younger Dickey grew up to become a professional ball player. As the book ends, though, Dickey said he’d longed for reconciliation with his father.

He was back on the mound Tuesday against the Rays, which had its lead in the East Division cut to two games over the Jays after Monday’s 8-5 Toronto win.

The home side bagged a run in the second inning off a wild pitch and an RBI single from Brandon Guyer. Toronto booted the ball around a bit in the fifth and it led to a pair of runs.

Steve Delabar took over in the eighth inning and gave up a homer to Asdrubal Cabrera that was the difference in the game.

The game results were important, but Dickey’s commitment to his team overshadowed the game itself. He was going up against an awesome opponent in Archer, who is arguably the finest pitcher in the American League at the moment and a strong candidate to start the all-star game.

Archer was stunningly good to start the game as he retired the first 13 batters he faced and blanked the Jays and their MLB-best offence for four innings. He entered the game with 14 scoreless innings against the Jays in two previous starts, and wound up with 18 before Dioner Navarro crushed a 1-0 pitch with one out in the fifth to break up that early perfection from Archer.

Navarro added a single in the seventh when the Jays scored their second run. But Archer went eight innings on three hits to improve to 9-4, and win for the sixth time in his last eight starts.

NOTE: Look for the Jays to summon lefty Felix Doubront from Triple-A Buffalo if they decide to use a spot starter this Saturday to cover for the injured Aaron Sanchez. Toronto remains in discussions about that start and may simply skip the need for a starter and let the rotation proceed as is, given the day off Thursday. But if the decision is made to summon someone from Buffalo, it’s believed Doubront would get the call.