Game Recap: Toronto Blue Jays exploited by the long-ball

Welcome to the Blue Jays game recap for Friday evening’s game against the Chicago White Sox.

Toronto Blue Jays- 4 Chicago White Sox- 5

W: John Danks (7-6, 4.26 ERA) L: R.A Dickey (6-7, 4.24 ERA) SV: Jake Petricka (2)

The Jays began the second half of the season Friday night with R. A Dickey dealing a seemingly unhittable knuckleball. Dickey sat down the first three hitters in order before Jose Abreu reached on Jose Reyes‘ 9th error of the season.

Dickey settled down and retired the side, falling into a groove. It wasn’t until the fifth inning, when Abreu returned to the dish, did Dickey surrender his first base-hit. There, the slugger did what he does best: drive the ball out of the ballpark. The solo shot made it 1-0 before the long ball hurt Dickey again as Dayan Viciedo took Dickey deep on a line-drive to left field making it 2-0.

Offensively the Jays were unable to solve starting pitcher John Danks who pounded the strike-zone until he himself gave up back-to-back home-runs in the sixth off the bats of Edwin Encarnacion and Dioner Navarro, tying the game 2-2.

However, the story of the game had to be R.A Dickey’s late game struggles. Dickey shut down the White Sox hitters in the sixth before returning to the seventh and being pulled before he could record an out. Instead, he was roughed up for three runs by virtue of the long-ball as Abreu and Alexei Ramirez took Dickey yard with Ramirez’s being a two run shot.

That would spell the end of the night for Dickey as he pitched six plus innings, surrendering five runs on five hits, walking one and striking out nine.