RA Dickey

NEW YORK CITY: After going 4-3 on the just-completed road trip, the Mets will open a six-game home stand tonight against the Marlins and Astros. It'll be a very intriguing matchup between two pitchers having good seasons.

The Marlins, who generally have plenty of Mets killers on their team, will have a very different look. They traded Jorge Cantu at the trading deadline and just lost two more players over the last week.

I'm not going to lie.  I mercilessly mocked the New York Mets for signing R.A. Dickey in the offseason.  To be honest, I was frustrated.  Other teams were out signing pitchers like John Lackey (Red Sox), or trading for others such as Cliff Lee (Mariners), and I was stuck having to deal with the Mets settling for a 35-year-old knuckleballer who had never seen any extended success in the major leagues. 

If you’ve watched the Mets this season, you know how much of a roller coaster it’s been. From the hot start to April to the inconsistent May, to a month of June where they looked like true contenders and then a July that put that talk to bed.

Check out Sammy's video preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9xHB81eJjg&feature=youtube_gdata

NEW YORK—The last time the Philadelphia Phillies came to Citi Field, they left without scoring a run. No, not just the last game they played—the entire series they played back in May.

LOS ANGELES—For the fourth time on the 11-game West Coast trip—that the Mets ended 2-9 today—the Mets got shut out. For the third time on the trip, the Mets enter a prolonged scoreless innings streak.

After starting the trip scoreless over 24 innings, the Mets end the trip going 16 innings without scoring a run.

They had R.A. Dickey on the mound, and he did all he could do to keep the Mets in the game. Just like in his previous two starts, and like with any other Mets pitcher, no run support was given.

SAN FRANCISCO—What the Mets wanted to do in the first half was hang around until they got Carlos Beltran back.

But unlike last season, the Mets didn't wait for their reinforcements to return, they treated them as a bonus. They did a good job of playing without their star center fielder, going 48-40, and being only one game behind of a playoff spot.

Tonight, almost exactly six months to the day of announcing knee surgery on January 16, Carlos Beltran returns to the Mets lineup, batting cleanup in center field.

The New York Mets have been superb in June. They have become a bona fide contender in the National League East, and have solidified their position as a buyer rather than a seller before this season's trade deadline.

There have been a tremendous amount of positives which have come hand-in-hand with their overall success.

Yet, in the middle of all of those positives, there has been one surprising—and alarming—dark spot for the Mets: Johan Santana.

Robert Allen Dickey. The man. The myth. The legend. The knuckleballer. The All-Star? Cy Young Award winner?! MVP?!? Hall of Famer?!?! 

I may be getting a bit carried away there at the end, but no one can argue that Dickey has been anything but amazing for the Mets in his seven starts since filling in due to injuries. 

NEW YORK-- R.A. Dickey is becoming an absolutely amazing story for the New York Mets. The 35-year-old knuckleballer continued to roll tonight, shutting out the Tigers over eight innings of work. He allowed four hits, walked two, and struck out four, while only throwing 97 pitches.

It didn't start off easy for Dickey though. He got into immediate trouble in the first, loading the bases with his only two walks of the game. With two outs, he got second baseman Carlos Guillen to groundout to second to end the inning, without allowing a run to score.

Currently, the Mets sport a rotation of Johan Santana , Mike Pelfrey, Jonathon Niese, RA Dickey, and Hisanori Takahashi. Dickey and Takahashi did not start the season in the rotation, but after John Maine and Oliver Perez hit the DL, Dickey and Takahashi took over.