The regular season is still six weeks away but R.A. Dickey already has hitters muttering under their breath.

Dickey threw to live batters for the first time in camp on Sunday afternoon, and most of the Blue Jays came away from the plate shaking their heads.

The veteran knuckleballer displayed impressive movement that baffled the likes of Brett Lawrie, Adam Lind and Mark DeRosa. There were moments of laughter and also complete bewilderment as they stepped into the box for the first time against last year's National League Cy Young Award winner.

"It looks like a paper airplane coming at you," DeRosa said. "It's going every which way and you really can't time it up because now he's able to add and subtract velocity on it, and occasionally sneak his heater by you.

"He's just got so much confidence with the pitch and he's able to do kind of what he wants to do with it, whereas before he was just kind of throwing it at the same speed."

Dickey almost exclusively throws a knuckleball but does have the ability to mix in a fastball/changeup combination. Last year, he threw the fastball approximately 14 percent of the time, and while the pitch typically is thrown in the low 80s, it often appears much faster.