From Last Night:

• Lorenzo Cain drives in 2 in the first to back Guthrie’s CGSO against the White Sox
• Jose Fernandez allows 1 hit in 7 innings while striking out 9 Phillies in his first ML win
• Strasburg gives up 2 homeruns in 7 innings, but the Nats score 1 in the top of the 9th to outlast the Bucs
• Wainwright struggles for the first time (5 ER in 5.1 IP), but the Cards deliver in the 9th to win
• Dickey gets lit up by the Mariners, Blue Jays fall 8-1
• Hughes throws 8 scoreless as the Yanks top the A’s

What I’m Watching Today:

• Hudson tries to an encore to his 200th win against Niese and the Mets (1p Eastern)
• Halladay looks to straighten out again against the Marlins (230p Eastern)
• Jon Lester. Yu Darvish. Arlington, Texas. (3p Eastern)
• Alex Cobb takes his hot start to Coors Field (4p Eastern)
• Strikeout happy Ryu gets struggling ace Matt Cain at AT&T (8p Eastern)

The Big Question:

• On a day in which Strasburg and Wainwright were on the mound, how did Guthrie, Fernandez, and Hughes headline the night? (Well, Scherzer did his part!)

R.A. Dickey…what’s going on? I certainly expected some regression from the 2012 peak in moving to the AL and a hitter friendly park, but this is pretty serious so far. We’re not deep enough into the season to totally dismiss a small sample size issue, but it’s getting to the point where it just doesn’t look like he’s going to pitch at or around ace levels for the foreseeable future. He’s 2-5 in 7 starts over 42 IP with a 7.07 K/9 and 3.64 BB/9 to go with a 5.36 ERA and 5.19 FIP. Granted, FIP isn’t a great judge of knuckleballers, but the other numbers don’t exactly hearten Blue Jays fans or Dickey fantasy owners (the present author included). If you go back to the much more reasonable 2010-2011 seasons, Dickey’s numbers this year don’t match those either. His strikeouts are up, but his walks are too. His ERA is way up, but his groundball rate is down considerably. That’s the item on the list that catches my attention the most. I haven’t watch Dickey enough to know, but I’m curious if this is the league figuring him out. Maybe he’s not much different and hitters are just getting smarter. I’m not sure, and I know there is some injury talk, but either way, the Mets are starting to look like even better for the offseason deal. The Jays can still turn it around if Dickey finds his groove, but I’m starting to wonder if he will.