Dickey winning over more naysayers with every start

To recover from the mental grind of the baseball season last year, R.A. Dickey went into the woods and sat by himself, alone with only his thoughts.

It was a silent retreat, so for three days all he did was read, think and decompress while enjoying the nature of a 2,000-acre farmland in Kentucky. His only correspondence with the outside world was a nightly text message to his wife.

Among the people he passed while he was there, Dickey estimated that he was the youngest "by 20 years." So it's safe to say there weren't any other major leaguers there.

Clearly Dickey is far from your typical major leaguer, which in many ways makes him the perfect guy for the Mets' rotation right now. For too long they were weighed down by the unreliable performances of Oliver Perez and John Maine, and then along comes a guy that makes it so easy to root for him.

On the mound he gives the appearance of a real battler, which you think he would have to be to basically throw away everything you've learned about pitching to become a full-time knuckleballer at the age of 30.

His delivery doesn't look comfortable, not with the awkward way he appears to bend his arm and how he seemingly pushes the ball out of his hand. But this sure has been effective.

Dickey threw eight scoreless innings last night in a 5-0 win over the Tigers, improving his record to 6-0 in only seven starts. He retired the final 13 Tigers he faced, and 18 of the last 19.

All this from a guy who threw only five innings in spring training, which was a pretty good indication of where the manager considered the righthander to be on the depth chart.

Thinking back to the moment last month he heard Dickey was coming up, Jerry Manuel said, "When they made the call and said he was the hot guy, I was a little bit concerned, to be honest with you."

Not anymore, of course. Now Manuel feels so confident with Dickey on the mound that he said it's going to take "a number of bad starts" before he considers taking him out of the rotation.

Dickey doesn't even want to hear it. He believes in the power of positive thinking, which is one reason why he never quit during his five-year journey from wannabe knuckleballer to the real thing. Perseverance has always been a big part of Dickey's makeup, and it was on display during last night's game.

He struggled with his knuckler in the first inning, walking two of the first five batters he faced. The Tigers had two on with one out and the bases loaded with two outs but couldn't capitalize, with Dickey getting Carlos Guillen to ground out to second to end the inning.

That proved to be the Tigers' last real threat, because Dickey gained a better command of his knuckler and, in turn, constantly kept the Tigers guessing. Their hitters tried everything, including swinging at the first pitch on four straight at-bats, and nothing worked.

"It didn't feel good at the beginning," Dickey said, "but it kind of evolved into a pretty good knuckleball."

What's interesting to watch with him is the velocity, which usually tells you how effective the pitch is going to be that night. The more Dickey threw the knuckler, the harder - and better - it became. He topped out at 80 mph, something Phil Niekro and Charlie Hough never would have dreamed of.

As for this run Dickey is on, he stops short of calling it a dream.

"It doesn't feel surreal," he said. "I feel like this is something I've always felt I was capable of doing."

Now he's convincing others, as well.