Williams' advice on facing Dickey's knuckleball: "See it high, let it fly"

The Nationals enter today's doubleheader against the Blue Jays with a pretty formidable pair taking the hill. Nats manager Matt Williams will throw Jordan Zimmermann in the afternoon and Max Scherzer this evening.

Meanwhile, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons will also stick to his scheduled starters with knuckleballer R.A. Dickey going in the daytime and right-hander Marco Estrada pitching at night.

Several current Nationals are familiar with Dickey, who won the National League Cy Young Award with the Mets in 2012. Wilson Ramos has experienced the most success against Dickey. In 13 at-bats facing the knuckleballer, Ramos has collected nine hits (.692), one homer and three RBIs.

Williams fared pretty well in his 17-year career against two of the game's all-time knuckleballers, Tim Wakefield and Charlie Hough. Overall, he was 5-for-15, banging two homers against Wakefield and also taking Hough deep for his only hit in four at-bats. Williams described his approach against the quirky style.

"See it high, let it fly. See it low, let it go," he said smirking. "What you want from a knuckleballer is, the way I learned how to approach one, is to take their space away which means get him up on the plate and into the box a little bit. Because they want space to throw the ball to. If the ball is up in the strike zone, take whack at it.

"It's never easy, it's never fun. It's just dancing. Especially (Dickey's), it just dances all over the place. Try not to do too much with the baseball because the longer swing gets you in trouble. The shorter one, you tend to have better success. See it high, let it fly."

Dickey has already been shelled for 12 homers in his 10 starts this year. He brings a 2-5 record with a 5.77 ERA into today's game.

Estrada was one of the Nationals' first draft picks, selected in the sixth round of the 2005 First-Year Player Draft. He made his major league debut in Washington in 2008 and was 0-1 with a 7.20 ERA in 15 appearances over two seasons with the Nats.

Five of Estrada's 11 outings this season have been starts for the Blue Jays. The 31-year-old is 1-3 with a 3.89 ERA.