Baltimore Orioles outfielder Joey Rickard (23) slides to score a run as Toronto Blue Jays catcher Josh Thole (22) cannot catch the ball in the first inning at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on April 20, 2016.Evan Habeeb
Beleaguered knuckleball pitcher R.A. Dickey gave the Toronto Blue Jays the start they have been patiently waiting for all season.
Unfortunately, the end result was not to his liking.
Josh Thole let a pitch from reliever Joe Biagini get away from him in the bottom of the 10th inning, allowing the winning run to cross home as the Baltimore Orioles won 4-3 at Camden Yards on Wednesday night.
It was a bitter loss for the Blue Jays (8-8) to swallow after batting back from an early 3-0 disadvantage. The setback also snapped a three-game Toronto win streak.
Dickey struggled early and surrendered three runs off three hits in the first inning, which allowed Baltimore to scoot in front 3-0.
It was the second consecutive game that Dickey has coughed up three runs in the opening frame.
But Dickey settled down after that, shutting down Baltimore on just two more hits through the next five innings before departing after six innings and the Jays trailing 3-2.
After falling behind early, the Blue Jays chipped away at the Baltimore lead, scoring one run in the third and another in the fifth on an opposite-field home run by Josh Donaldson that cut Baltimore's lead to 3-2. The homer was the American League leader's sixth of the season.
The Blue Jays tied it in the seventh when Edwin Encarnacion doubled home Michael Saunders from third base.
Saunders was grateful for the second chance to score after he failed to tag up on a line drive by Jose Bautista to centre.
If anybody needed a favourable outcome on Wednesday, it was Dickey, whose performance over the first month of the season has provided a year's worth of fodder for the sports-radio junkies.
Over all, Toronto starters have been surprisingly spry this season. In their past nine starts heading into Wednesday's game, they were 6-3 with a 2.30 earned-run average along with a .207 opponent's batting average.
Dickey has been the outlier to that.
In his previous outing, a loss against Boston on Friday, Dickey lasted 4 2/3 innings, his third consecutive start that he has failed to reach six innings. You have to go all the way back to the 2008 season to find the previous time he has struggled like that.
Historically, Dickey has shown a penchant for throwing late in into games, his 654 2/3 innings over his past three seasons the most by a Blue Jays hurlers since Roy Halladay exceeded 710 from 2007-2009.
At 41, some are wondering if Dickey's age is becoming a factor, something that Toronto manager John Gibbons will pass off as rubbish.
Dickey, Gibbons notes, is a notorious slow starter – and the numbers since the knuckleballer has plied his trade in Toronto back that up.
In his three seasons in a Blue Jays uniform heading into 2016, Dickey's combined record the first half of the year is 18-29, a win percentage of 38.3 per cent. Over the second half, his win-loss record is 21-8, a 72.4-per-cent success rate.
However, it is interesting to note that in 2012, Dickey's Cy Young Award season with the New York Mets, he went 12-1 in the first half and 8-5 in the second.
Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Manny Machado singled to score Caleb Joseph in the bottom of the 10th inning. In fact, Machado walked and during another player's at-bat, Joseph scored the winning run on a passed ball by Josh Thole.