R.A. Dickey, Mets Lose to Nationals

R.A. Dickey tried Monday night to keep pace with Gio Gonzalez , who won his 19th game Monday against the Mets. He couldn’t do it, as the Mets lost their fifth straight game.

Dickey struggled in the first, a rarity for him this season. Jayson Werth led off the game with a single. Bryce Harper, who said he wasn’t expecting to play because he had never had a hit against Dickey, doubled. By the way, Harper had four hits in the game, three off of Dickey. Werth came in to score on a Ryan Zimmerman sacrifice fly. Harper moved to third, but Dickey was able to pitch his way out of the inning.

The Mets finally got on the board against Jordan Zimmermann in the fourth. Ruben Tejada singled — he also had three hits on the night. Daniel Murphy doubled. The slicing ball took a weird bounce off the side wall in left and Tejada was able to score. David Wright followed with a single that plated Murphy to give the Mets a 2-1 lead.

However in the seventh Kurt Suzuki singled and pinch hitter Tyler Moore slammed a two-run homer into the seats in left to give the Nationals the lead, 3-2.

Terry Collins chose to pinch hit for Dickey leading off the bottom of the seventh after throwing only 84 pitches. With the Mets down, it was probably the right move, but let’s face it, the team is not going anywhere. The only thing left to root for is Dickey winning 20 games and possibly the Cy Young Award. I don’t think anybody would have been upset if Collins left Dickey in to try to win the game.

So Dickey allowed three runs in seven innings, on eight hits and three walks. He struck out two — he’s now tied with the shut down Stephen Strasburg for second in the league with 197 strikeouts, trailing Clayton Kershaw’s 201. Dickey’s league-leading ERA went up slightly to 2.68. His record falls to 18-5.

Frank Francisco didn’t give the Mets a chance to come back. He allowed three straight hits without getting an out in the ninth (on his birthday, no less). One run came in while he was on the mound, and Josh Edgin allowed one more of them to score to make it 5-2.

Scott Hairston smashed a pinch hit homer in the ninth to make it 5-3. Hairston now has 17 home runs on the season, tied for second on the team with Wright.

Mets lose 5-3.