The only knuckleballer left in major league baseball, R.A. Dickey, made the Diamondbacks hitters look foolish on Sunday. When they waited on pitches he spun them in for strikes. When they tried to swing, the ball fluttered away at the last second. Arizona bats managed just four hits against the Mets "hurler" who threw eight innings before being lifted in the ninth when the D-backs started a rally.
Gerardo Parra, who was the only hitter with success against Dickey (2 hits, 1 walk), got on and then scored on a double by Justin Upton. Jason Kubel came about six feet from tying game with a fly ball that moved Upton to third with one out. But Frank Francisco came out of one of the worst bullpens in the game and punched out Paul Goldschmidt and got a fly ball from Miguel Montero to end the game, series and road trip.
Trevor Cahill pitched well enough, giving up three runs over seven innings. He got in trouble in the first inning with the hot-hitting Daniel Murphy plating two with a single to shallow center. Andres Torres (walk) and David Wright (single) scored from second and third on the hit.
The Mets got their third run in the fourth inning off a Josh Thole RBI single.
With the loss, the D-backs finish the East Coast road trip a disappointing 5-5 with four of those losses coming by one-run and two featuring blown late leads. In other words, this easily could have been a 7-3 trip, but instead the Snakes return home having played well but with only a .500 result to show for it.
Next up is a six-game home stand starting with the St. Louis Cardinals and then finishing with the San Francisco Giants.
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