Callers to sports talk shows and most of the Twitter-verse all seem to hate the fact Blue Jays starter R.A. Dickey is still on the team — mainly because he throws that trick-pitch, the ever-capricious knuckleball.

And he has his own personal catcher. Critics call the pitch unreliable, and they suggest at 42-years-old, Dickey should retire because he’s dragging a good rotation down.

Well look again, because for the past 37 days, Dickey is 4-3 with a 2.89 ERA in seven starts and on pace to reach 200-plus innings for the seventh consecutive season. He pitches on Sunday and will take over the team lead in games started in what has been an excellent major-league starting five.

Every season, at the all-star break, we ask him for his opinion on the team’s second-half prospects.

“Our pitching’s been pretty good, and that was a point of concern last year — how are we going to make it through a playoff push?” Dickey said. “That got addressed when we got David (Price). The pieces are already here is what I’m saying. Last year we thought it would be a stretch with what we had to go all the way, without a trade. This year we feel we have what we need.”

Dickey enjoys where the club is positioned, especially with the five-men of the rotation. He is in the option season of a multi-year extension, signed when he joined the Jays, but even at his advanced baseball age, he is not ready to pack it in. It’s unlikely the Jays will re-sign him but he will find another contract, maybe back in the National League. Right now, he’s just concerned about this year and what he feels is the real possibility of a return to the post-season.

“My body feels really good and my velocities have not diminished,” Dickey said. “My pitch certainly hasn’t lost its effectiveness, so I see no reason why I couldn’t keep going. When I feel like I can’t do that, then it’s time to go away. I happily will. In this particular moment, I feel like I’m ascending, not descending.”

Statistics reflect Dickey’s belief that it’s hard to put a label on the Jays’ current five-man rotation. It’s hard to point to a No. 1 or a No. 5, and he believes that’s what makes them tough.

“I feel like we’re all capable of what we’re doing,” Dickey said. “I would challenge you to find a better staff than what we have as far as dependability, innings pitched for starters, quality starts. For (Aaron) Sanchez, it’s hard because as human being we can only see five minutes in front of our face, usually. For him he has statistically put up the kind of year where he should be at the all-star game.”

Dickey insists he does not read newspapers or look at social media, so he is unaware of the mixed fan reaction when he pitches. The fact he consistently starts the season slow and follows that up with surging second half is ignored by those that would simply like him to disappear.

“I love baseball, I’m passionate about it and nobody in here wants to win more than I do, but it does not define me, does not define who I am as a human being,” Dickey said.

“That always helps. It helps you weather the storms when things aren’t going your way. It helps you to not take yourself too seriously when things are good for you. It does calm that part of what you have to do to consistently compete. That’s all I’ve wanted to do is just be consistent. I’ve wanted to be able to pitch more than six innings every time I get the ball and keep my team in the game every time.”

Perhaps even more maligned than himself by an impatient fan-base has been the Jays’ bullpen. Other than Roberto Osuna, there has been little consistency among the relievers, but Dickey looks at recent history and sees Jason Grilli as an important piece that fills a need.

“I think Grilli’s presence gives you more than just a guy who has a good arm down there,” Dickey explained. “It’s a lot of that LaTroy Hawkins overflow. The overflow out of Jason is going to spill into some guys. The conversations down there between he and (Joe) Biagini, or he and some other guys are going to be beneficial for everybody. I think he and a healthy Brett Cecil help.”

He may not pay attention to media, but word is out inside the clubhouse that Sanchez is going to be on an innings limit as a starter and at that point be bullpen-bound.

“They’ve made that evident,” Dickey said of the Sanchez speculation. “When that happens, you’re looking at maybe one of the best bullpens around. So we’re in a pretty good spot right now, and we could get (the equivalent of) a huge trade acquisition at the deadline when Jose Bautista comes back.

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“We feel good about what’s going on right now, but we still have to do it.”

After 88 games a year ago, the Jays’ record stood at 44-44. But by the end of July they had made key trades and finished the season with 93 wins and an AL East title.