Dickey vs. Sabathia doesn't live up to the hype

There was a part of Terry Collins that made him just as excited as everyone else to see how Sunday night's much-hyped Subway Series pitching matchup between R.A. Dickey and CC Sabathia was going to shake out.

"I am. I am," the Mets' manager said before the nationally televised series finale at Citi Field. "Any time you've got two guys pitching as well as these guys are pitching, to square them off is going to be fun to watch.''

It was fun to watch, but not necessarily because of the pitchers, neither of whom would get a decision. After falling behind 4-0 and 5-1, the Mets tied it at 5 in the sixth. Dickey allowed five runs in six innings before giving way to a pinch hitter and Sabathia was charged with five runs in 5 2/3 innings, four of which were unearned.

Nick Swisher hit a three-run homer off Dickey with two outs in the third. Andres Torres had a two-out, two-run single off Sabathia and Ruben Tejada added an RBI single off Cory Wade in the sixth as the Mets tied it.

Each ace pitched a complete game in his previous start, with Dickey striking out 13 and Sabathia fanning 10.

Dickey entered the game having pitched two consecutive one-hitters in which he struck out 25 in 18 innings. In his previous six starts, Dickey had allowed one earned run in 482/3 innings, striking out 63, and compiled an 0.18 ERA and 0.53 WHIP.

Dickey's season has been off the charts. He led the majors with 11 wins and his 2.00 ERA was tied for the lowest in the majors. The knuckleballer was 9-0 with a 1.21 ERA in his last 11 starts dating to April 25 and tossed a franchise-record 32 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings.

Entering last night, his 103 strikeouts ranked fourth in the majors was good enough for second in the National League behind the Nationals' Stephen Strasburg. In short, his knuckleball has been nearly unhittable.

"It's just something you don't see on a regular basis," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "This is the only knuckleball we've seen this year and I don't know if we'll see another one over the course of the year, and I think that's the hardest thing to prepare [for]. The teams that are most familiar with him are the teams in the National League East because they are going to see him more than once a year, so it is somewhat hard to prepare for."

But Girardi wasn't about to do anything drastic to help get the Yankees ready for Dickey's knuckleball. He wanted them to go about their business as usual in batting practice, opting not to have his hitters face any pseudo knuckleballs because he didn't think there was any real way to simulate Dickey's dancing pitch.

"He'll change speeds on it," Girardi said. "He'll throw his harder at times than other people did. I think the amazing stat about R.A. Dickey is the amount of strikes he throws with it. I think that's probably the most incredible thing where, you think about it, it's supposed to be a pitch that's hard to control. But he seems to have really good control of it. To me, that's probably the most impressive thing."

Dickey had walked only 21 in 99 innings overall and five in 48 2/3 innings in his previous six games.

Sabathia entered with a 9-3 mark and a 3.55 ERA, having won four of his last five decisions. Sabathia, whose 185 wins since 2001 are the most in the majors, has been his true workhorse self for the Yankees, tossing at least seven innings in 11 of 14 starts this season. That tied him with the Reds' Johnny Cueto and the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw for the most outings with at least seven innings pitched.

Sabathia also had thrown at least 100 pitches in each of his last 22 starts, which, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, is the second-longest active streak in the majors behind Detroit ace Justin Verlander's 67.

"It's going to be a test for us to try to figure out how to score," Collins said. "But to me, this is really the fun part of the game, is when you have two teams that are competing and you've got your two best pitchers out there going. It could be a fun game for us."

It just wasn't for the aces.