R.A. Dickey Wins 19th, Mets Hold off Marlins

After two failures, R.A. Dickey finally won his 19th game on Saturday as the Mets held off the Marlins for a 4-3 win. However Gio Gonzalez won his 20th, so the two are still neck and neck for the Cy Young Award.

In the second inning Lucas Duda walked and Jason Bay hit a home run to dead center field to give the Mets a 2-0 lead. If only Bay could always bat against Mark Buehrle — he hit a grand slam against him earlier this month.

Scott Hairston hit a solo blast, also to dead center, in the fourth to extend the lead to 3-0. It was the second straight game Hairston has gone long. He now has 19 homers on the season.

Josh Thole led off the fifth inning with a double. Dickey hit a sharp grounder that got by the second baseman. It was ruled an error but should have been a hit. Thole advanced to third. With one out Daniel Murphy hit a grounder to first that Carlos Lee bobbled. He threw home, too late to get Thole as the Mets made it a 4-0 game. No error there. Weird scoring.

With the bases loaded in sixth and two outs Dickey hit a drive to left field in an effort to put the game out of reach. But the ball was within reach of Bryan Peterson, leaping at the wall to make a spectacular catch to keep it a 4-0 game.

After eight scoreless innings, Dickey was back out there for the ninth, but he allowed a walk and a double and was pulled with runners on second and third and no outs. Jon Rauch came on and promptly served up a three-run home run to John Buck to cut the Mets lead to 4-3. Rauch struck out the next batter, then allowed a hit to put the tying run on first. He got the second out on a grounder to Ike Davis, but the Mets couldn’t turn the double play. A stolen base moved the tying run to second. But Rauch got a strikeout to end the game, and the Mets held on for the win.

Despite allowing the two runs Dickey slightly lowered his league-leading ERA to 2.66, and with four strikeouts, he also now leads the league in Ks with 209.

Mets win 4-3.