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DUNEDIN, Florida – R.A. Dickey and Russell Martin are going to need every moment of their work together in bullpen sessions and Grapefruit League games this spring, but after their first two innings of facing an opposing team's hitters, they're feeling good about the ongoing process.
Martin missed five of Dickey's knuckleballs in two innings but Dickey said that was more a result of the quality of his pitch than anything Martin was doing wrong.
The Blue Jays beat the Orioles 5-4.
"There was only really one that I thought that he would have normally handled with a little more experience," said Dickey. "Outside of that, I threw two strike threes that were really good, one was on a 3-2 count to (Travis) Snider where it dropped 12 inches right at the last second. He did a great job. He's definitely got all the tools. It's just a matter of working together."
"I don't think I'm ever going to be perfect but then again, when there's guys on base is when it matters," said Martin. "When there's two strikes on hitters, that's when you've really got to bear down. But as long as I feel like I'm catching the strikes the right way, the balls I can handle if I miss a ball here and there. But the strikes are the ones you want to catch for the most part – give the umpire a better look. I might have missed one strike today but other than that, I felt like I did a pretty good job."
Dickey was dominant and efficient in his two innings, throwing 26 pitches. He struck out the side in the first around a two-out walk to Chris Parmelee and needed only eight pitches to get through the second on a pop-up, a ground ball and a lazy fly ball.
The game's start was delayed an hour and 40 minutes by rain. What started as an intensely humid day morphed into a damp, cool afternoon at Florida Auto Exchange Stadium.
Dickey wasn't bothered.
Martin made an adjustment after talking to coach Sal Butera, who had experience catching late knuckleballer Joe Niekro, and Dickey's long-time personal catcher, Josh Thole.
"Yeah, it was just staying relaxed and not really giving a target," said Martin. "Dickey said that he doesn't mind just throwing to wherever I set up. In the past, I think Thole would just relax his hand on his knee. I kind of keep mine to the left of my knee; that just keeps the shoulder from tightening up. If you give a target, your shoulder is dancing around and it wears on you so I think by keeping it relaxed, it allows me to keep it free and moving the right way."
Hutchison Shines
Drew Hutchison threw two scoreless, hitless innings coming in behind R.A. Dickey.
After focusing on his changeup during his one inning of work during Monday's intra-squad game, Hutchison had different goals in mind on Friday.
"When you only have two innings, or the other day I had one inning, sometimes you can't get to everything," he said. "You try to find one thing that's going to be your main thing and today, I wanted to make sure I got some sliders in, which I did. As we get more pitches, more innings, you're kind of able to put everything together."
"I felt like he was aggressive in the zone," said Martin. "First inning, he mainly threw fastballs but I like his mentality, I like how he goes about his business out there. It looks like he tries to attack from the get-go. Then in the second inning, he threw some more off-speed pitches, threw some nice back door sliders to some lefties. Still, I know he probably wants to improve on the fastball command but for the most part I definitely like what he had out there today."
Bautista Scratched
Jose Bautista was a late scratch due to tightness in his right hamstring.
The game was delayed the better part of two hours by rain. Bautista took part in morning batting practice.
"If he feels something, we're not going to throw him out there," said manager John Gibbons. "We didn't want anybody on the grass much (today) anyway but we didn't have a choice."
Soreness for Cecil
Left-hander Brett Cecil is dealing with shoulder soreness and didn't pitch in Friday's game as originally scheduled.
"No use pushing it right now," said manager John Gibbons.
Cecil is tentatively scheduled to appear in Sunday's home game against Houston.
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