Great start for R.A. Dickey, Jays Win

Angels 4 Blue Jays 8

When R.A. Dickey gave up the home run to someone named Marc Krauss, in the first inning, I thought "oh great, here we go again". In that first inning it looked like his knuckleball was just hanging out there waiting to be hit. But, from the second inning on, the knuckleball looked great, moving around just the way we wish it would every start.

Dickey threw a complete game. He gave up a 2-run homer in the 9th but we were up by 6 by then, so no big deal. In all, he threw 9 innings, allowed 5 hits, 4 earned, just 2 walks and 7 strikeouts. Even with the home run in the 9th, it was a very good start.

That's our first 9 inning complete game of the season. Mark Buehrle had an 8 inning complete game, losing to the Astros, last week.

The question was, would we score for the R.A. In his first 8 starts, the Jays have averaged just 3.0 runs of support for R.A. But we scored early and often, putting up 8 runs, the best support he's received this year.

We scored:

• 2 in the 3rd. Danny Valencia got us on the board with a leadoff homer. Then Ryan Goins doubled, a ground ball hit right at Angels first baseman Krauss, that took a funny hop to evade him. Goins scored when Angels pitcher Matt Shoemaker threw Steve Tolleson's bunt over first and into right field.
• 4 in the 5th. Goins walked. Tolleson singled. Jose Bautista tapped a single the other way, beating the shift to drive in 1. Then Edwin Encarnacion showed another way to beat the shift, crushing a 3 run homer.
• 2 in the 7th. Tolleson, reaching on a walk, and Josh Donaldson, who doubled, scored on a Bautista sac fly and a Kevin Pillar ground out.

In all, we had 10 hits. Goins and Tolleson had 2 each. Everyone else in the starting lineup had 1, except for Josh Thole, and we'll forgive him, since R.A. had such a good night throwing to him.

Jays of the Day: Dickey (.199 WPA), Tolleson (.163, helped along by Shoemaker's error, but I'm in a good mood, let's give him a JoD anyway), Edwin (.100), Valencia (.099) and Goins (.090).

Suckage: Surprisingly, Josh Donaldson had the number at -.106 for a 1 for 5 day. He struck out with 1 on in the 3rd and popped up with 2 on in the 5th, but we didn't need him tonight.

We had 544 comments in our GameThread. It was a quick game. Belisarius led us to victory. Good job sir.