Dylan Cease’s no-hitter marks the latest high point in his ascent with the Padres

The truth is, it was probably only a matter of time before Dylan Cease threw a no-hitter.

Since 2021, Cease had recorded an astounding 11 starts of at least six innings with just one hit allowed. That’s the most such starts by any pitcher in baseball over that span, and only five pitchers in MLB history have recorded more in their careers: Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Justin Verlander, Bob Feller and Blake Snell, all of whom (except for Snell, who is still seeking his first) have thrown multiple no-nos. Prior to this week, Cease’s closest call had come two years ago against the Twins, when now-teammate Luis Arraez spoiled the bid with two outs in the ninth inning.

On Thursday afternoon in Washington, D.C., Cease got it done. Despite an ultra-rare, mid-first-inning rain delay that put his start into question before it even began, Cease took the mound roughly 90 minutes later than expected and proceeded to deliver the outing of his life: a career-high 114 pitches across nine innings with three walks, nine strikeouts and, of course, zero hits allowed.

As the celebration in the infield died down, Arraez, fittingly, was there with the game ball for Cease to keep.

The marvelous outing was the latest in an especially excellent run of pitching from the 28-year-old righty. Two of Cease’s one-hit masterpieces came in the two starts leading up to his no-hitter: He struck out 11 Braves in six scoreless innings in his final start before the All-Star break, then collected 10 punchouts across seven scoreless frames in Cleveland against the first-place Guardians in his first start of the second half.

Add Thursday’s no-no, and Cease became the first pitcher ever to complete at least six innings with one or zero hits allowed in three consecutive starts.

More broadly, the no-hitter re-centers the spotlight on a pitcher who was discussed plenty in the offseason as one of the more enticing trade targets available — all the way until he was dealt to San Diego in the rare March blockbuster. The timing of that deal resulted in an unusually chaotic start to Cease’s Padres tenure. Sure, he had a pretty good idea the White Sox were going to trade him before Opening Day, but what he did not know was that he would be traded to a team that was hours away from boarding a flight to the other side of the world.

Indeed, on Wednesday, March 13 — the day the Padres were scheduled to depart for South Korea in preparation for the season-opening Seoul Series — Cease woke up as a member of the White Sox organization, still awaiting his fate. Around 3 p.m. in Arizona, he found out he was being traded to the Padres. About an hour later, the deal was reported, and a few hours after that, it was official.

While it was too late for Cease to make the Padres’ flight that evening, the organization let him know that they’d love for him to join the team in Korea and start the get-to-know-you process ASAP.

“I was willing to do it because I wanted to be a part of it,” Cease told Yahoo Sports last week in Cleveland.

It’s one thing to agree, but it’s another to prepare for a trans-Pacific flight on such short notice; the first flight the Padres suggested was leaving at 7 a.m. the next day. At first, Cease couldn’t find his passport, which meant he would’ve needed to drive two hours to Tucson to get a temporary passport, making a departure at any point Thursday extremely challenging. Fortunately, he found it, so all he needed to do was pack.

After a brief workout at the Padres’ facility in Peoria, Cease caught a flight from Phoenix to Los Angeles before departing Thursday night on the 13-hour journey to Seoul. By Friday evening, he had started familiarizing himself with his new teammates — none of whom he’d previously had any connection with. As wild and unexpected of a trip as it was, Cease says now that he’s grateful he was able to make it work, and it paid off in how quickly he got comfortable in his new clubhouse.

On the mound, though, it took some time for Cease to settle into his new surroundings as the regular season commenced. While he continued to rack up strikeouts as always, a rough patch in May pushed him out of All-Star consideration and out of the national conversation. He wasn’t pitching poorly by any stretch, but he wasn’t standing out, either.

Then Cease started to find his groove as the summer rolled along, culminating in his three most recent sensational starts. An ERA that was at 4.24 on July 2 has dropped to 3.50 in just four outings, and Cease currently holds a comfortable lead atop MLB’s strikeout leaderboard, with 168 in 131 innings.

While the strikeouts come as no surprise, the strides Cease has made with his command in San Diego stand out. For years, he piled up free passes — no pitcher walked more batters than Cease’s 259 from 2021 through ’23 — but largely got away with it because his stuff is just that good. This year, however, Cease has slashed a walk rate that was 10.4% for his career entering the season to below 8%, a mark more in line with league average.

Now in his sixth big-league campaign, Cease attributes his improved strike-throwing to having been around the block a few times and having a better understanding what he needs to do within each start.

“I’ve had a lot of games where I didn’t necessarily have the best feel, but I’m not really walking guys, I’m still getting in the zone,” Cease said. “It’s the games where I’ve got a good feel that you get the big strikeouts and go deeper and all that, but I think just for the most part, that’s kind of an experience-based thing, where I know how to adjust better, focus better, whatever the case may be.

“And it’s allowed me to throw more strikes and walk less guys.”

This exquisite recent run has also featured the best velocity we’ve seen from Cease as a big leaguer. Before this month, he had thrown a pitch in excess of 100 mph just four times in his career: once in 2019, once in 2020 and twice in the lone postseason start of his career, Game 3 of the 2021 ALDS, in which he lasted just 1 2/3 innings. Over the past three starts, he has hit 100 six times — three times against Atlanta before the All-Star break and three times Thursday in the no-no. Against Cleveland last week, his heater averaged 98.2 mph and touched 99.7, a mark he hadn’t reached since 2021.

The uptick in velocity has impacted Cease’s other primary weapon: a slider that has rated as one of baseball’s most effective individual pitches since his debut. Four of the six hardest sliders Cease has thrown in his career came in the final three innings of his no-hitter, including the last pitch of the game: a 91.4 mph bender that got CJ Abrams to line out to right field for the 27th out.

It is those two pitches — along with a sharp, low-80s knuckle curveball that he uses about 10% of the time — that have carried Cease to where he is today. He’s so comfortable with both that they often alternate taking the lead in usage in any given start but nearly always account for more than 80% of his pitches. He’s one of a handful of modern aces, alongside the likes of Spencer Strider and Tyler Glasnow, whose fastballs and breaking balls are so overwhelming that a traditional off-speed offering is simply unnecessary, contrary to the longstanding belief that a starting pitcher needs such a weapon.

But that hasn’t made Cease unwilling to expand his arsenal. A change of scenery is a natural opportunity to explore new avenues to improve, and Padres pitching coach Ruben Niebla has a strong track record of getting even more out of newly acquired arms. And so, this spring Cease began toying around with a sweeper that was closer in speed to his traditional curveball (81-83 mph) but with significantly more horizontal movement. It was introduced in an effort to deepen his bag against same-handed hitters.

“The sweeper was specifically more for right-handers, while the curveball is more for left-handers,” Cease said. “But when I’m feeling good with my curveball, I feel like I can throw it to anybody.”

Cease’s new pitch got some real run in May and June, with some success, but it has been largely shelved lately with him feeling so good with his three main pitches, especially the curveball, as he suggested. Still, it’s nice to have another alternative to mix in as needed.

“We’ve just tinkered … adding more weapons and adding more things for them to have to prepare for and seeing what works,” Cease said. “Sometimes you gotta figure it out as you go and see how the hitters react.”

It’s clear how the hitters have been reacting recently: They have not been hitting. As such, Cease is likely to continue to lean on the strengths that got him to this point, strengths that seem to be getting only stronger as he accesses even more velocity and throws even more strikes.

For a Padres team in the absolute teeth of the NL wild-card race, Cease’s remarkable run could not have come at a better time. His next scheduled start is against the rival Dodgers next week at Petco Park, and by then, it’s possible the Padres will have added another fresh arm to join Cease on San Diego’s staff.

While there’s a long way to go for the Padres to return to the postseason, Cease is in an exceptional position to help them get there — and maybe do something special once they arrive. He has been everything they could’ve hoped for back in March. After all the innings that departed San Diego last winter, the Padres needed a new ace.

It took some time, but it sure looks like they’ve got one now.