The best pitcher in MLB at this very moment used to throw for the Twins and is now the ace of the Mets.

It is not Johan Santana.

Instead, it is R.A. Dickey, the journeyman knuckleballer who found glory one team too late as far as Twins fans are concerned. He fired his second consecutive one-hitter last night, the first pitcher in nearly a quarter of a century to do so. He is 11-1 with a 2.00 ERA, dazzling the National League and helping revive the Mets.

Oh, what could have been. Oh, what actually was -- at least for a few fleeting months.

Texas and Seattle had already taken their shots with Dickey, once a hot-shot prospect who -- per a 2009 Jim Souhan article -- dropped considerably in scouts' minds when it was discovered he did not have an ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow (that's the ligament that gets repaired during Tommy John surgery). Dickey assumes he was born without one, but the discovery led him to turn to being a knuckleballer. (Side note: The column also says Carlos Gomez and Michael Cuddyer are also missing the ligament, which is rather fascinating).

The Twins, who had forever been fascinated by having a knuckleballer in the ventilated, stale Metrodome air, gave Dickey his shot in 2009. Through the early part of July, he had a 2.36 ERA, much of it coming in long or late relief. But in six of his next 11 outings, he gave up at least three earned runs. His ERA ballooned to more than 4, and the Twins sent him to the minors. He never pitched here again, instead joining the Mets in 2010. Not that the Twins could have seen this coming, but as they say the rest is history.

Since going to New York, Dickey has been a frighteningly reliable starter. Even before his epic start to 2012, he posted back-to-back ERAs of 2.84 and 3.28 while starting 58 combined games in 2010 and 2011. With Terry Ryan recently unleashing the true-but-the-truth-hurts quote, "We need pitching, and we need it bad," it's hard not to wonder, strange as it sounds, how much better things would be if Dickey had figured it all out one team earlier.