Being constant and unfortunate residents of the American League East, the Orioles are no stranger to the knuckleball, having faced Red Sox right-hander Tim Wakefield, a fixture of Boston's rotation, twice already this season.
On Friday, though, in a 5-1 loss to the New York Mets, the Orioles witnessed a completely different animal courtesy of R.A. Dickey, whom they previously faced five years ago when his power knuckler was a floating, fluttering experiment.
It's big league now, and it created ugly swing after ugly swing, strikeout after strikeout and missed opportunity after missed opportunity.
"It was a lot faster than the average knuckleball," said Orioles center fielder Adam Jones, who struck out twice. "It was what, 74 to 80 [mph]?" Wakefield's is in the 60s? It was power, and it moved. It's like trying to play catch with your friends and you throw knuckleballs, and every once in a while it's a good one. It's like that."
The Orioles (17-44) have now lost 20 of their past 25 games and scored one run or been shut out in 19 of their 44 losses. This one came in front of an announced 28,554 on the annual floppy hat giveaway night. The promotions department should have thrown in something to cover the fans' eyes while the Orioles batters helplessly flailed at Dickey's signature pitch.
In his fourth consecutive win, Dickey (4-0) allowed seven hits in seven innings, but only Nick Markakis' double in the sixth went for extra bases. He allowed one run -- on a wild pitch -- and struck out a career-high eight batters.
"I'd say that's the toughest knuckleball I've faced in the big leagues," said first baseman Ty Wigginton, the only Oriole not to strike out Friday. "He had it working -- he had it working well."
The club's offensive frustration was encapsulated in the fourth inning -- by far its best chance against Dickey.
Miguel Tejada led off with a single, Markakis walked and Wigginton singled to load the bases with no outs.
In a matter of seven fluttering knuckleballs, the threat died.
Luke Scott struck out on three pitches, swinging at two. Jones struck out on three pitches, swinging at all three. And Matt Wieters popped weakly to third on the knuckleballer's first offering.
"We had a situation where we could have scored some runs there, loaded the bases, and I think he added a little velocity to that knuckleball and made it tough for our hitters," Orioles interim manager Juan Samuel said. "We got some hits; we did not get the big ones."
Not to be outdone, the final three hitters in each of the fifth and sixth innings left a runner in scoring position. The Orioles were 2-for-14 in those situations against Dickey and 3-for-17 in the game, dumping their season average with runners in scoring position to .219.
Overall, the Orioles managed 11 hits and one walk but had no RBIs and struck out a season-worst 12 times.
"We had chances to score. We scattered [11] hits," Jones said. "He made good pitches -- we just didn't come through. Point-blank. Nothing more to it."
The Orioles finally avoided the shutout in the seventh when Dickey uncorked a wild pitch and Wieters scored.
The Orioles trailed from the outset. Mets leadoff hitter Jose Reyes doubled against starter Jeremy Guthrie and scored two batters later on David Wright's RBI single. In his 13 starts, it was the ninth run Guthrie (3-7) had allowed in the first inning.
The right-hander lasted seven innings and matched Dickey in hits allowed (seven) and walks (one) while fanning five. But he made one more mistake -- a three-run homer to Chris Carter in the fourth. It was Carter's first career home run.
"I wouldn't say it was a bad pitch. It was the wrong pitch, and he did a good job on it," said Guthrie about his former Stanford teammate. "It was off the plate away, but he did a nice job to hit the home run. That was the big difference."
Otherwise, Guthrie pitched fairly well, three times throwing a perfect inning. But the Orioles again failed to muster offense with him on the mound. In his seven defeats, the Orioles have scored 12 total runs.
"It turns out in the seven losses, we don't score a bunch of runs and I don't put up zeros, and tonight is the perfect case of that," said Guthrie, whose ERA is 3.83. "If I had given up one or two runs, we would have had a really good shot."
Brad Bergesen entered in the eighth for the first relief appearance of his big league career and immediately surrendered a single and an RBI double by Wright to give the Mets a 5-1 lead. He allowed the one run and three hits in two relief innings in his first outing since June 2.
"I was a little bit rusty," Bergesen said. "Had the adrenaline kicking pretty good tonight, but hopefully I'll be able to get back into a rhythm and get sharp again."
The Orioles nearly closed to within a run in the eighth when Wieters hit a long fly ball to left that curled outside the foul pole by inches. Reliever Pedro Feliciano struck him out on the next pitch.
Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez yielded a double but pitched a scoreless ninth, striking out three of the four Orioles he faced -- a fitting end to the night.
One that belonged to Dickey and his ducking, darting pitches.
"He had a power knuckleball," Guthrie said. "I talked to Wieters -- maybe I should try one of those because it looked like it was tough to hit."
http://twitter.com/danconnollysun