WASHINGTON — The Padres went 8,205 games before a native son threw the franchise’s first no-hitter back in 2021.
On Thursday, just 582 games after Joe Musgrove made San Diego history, Dylan Cease did it again.
The right-hander waited out a rain delay of 76 minutes before taking the mound. He then drowned the Nationals in biting sliders and fastballs that still were touching 100 mph in the ninth inning, talked his way into pitching an extra two innings and ultimately ed Musgrove as a Padres immortal.
Cease had told the assembled Padres hitters in the batting cage before they took the field following the delay: “I just need one today. I feel good.”
The Padres immediately scored three — all on Ha-Seong Kim’s bases-loaded single in the first at-bat after the storm had cleared — and then pretty much settled in to watch Cease work his way through what ended up a 3-0 victory.
Cease walked three batters, didn’t feel entirely sharp his first two innings and had trouble corralling certain sliders all game.
“I wouldn’t say I was pinpoint today,” he said. “But it was obviously good enough.”
In the end, when right fielder Bryce Johnson caught CJ Abrams’ line drive for the final out, Cease raised his arms and was immediately embraced by catcher Luis Campusano as the Padres’ infielders and outfielders sprinted toward the pair and players streamed from the dugout and bullpen.
Cease was one out from a no-hitter while pitching for the White Sox on Sept. 3, 2022, before the Twins’ Luis Arraez — now his Padres teammate — ended the bid with a single.
Arraez, getting a day off from playing, watched from the dugout Thursday and was one of the men embracing Cease by second base after the final out. Not only that, Arraez got the ball from Johnson and was the one who handed it to Cease.
“I’m excited,” Arraez said. “I’m happy he did it. … I was nervous. I said, ‘Please God, make this happen.’ And he did it.”
Cease had allowed just one hit in seven scoreless innings in his last start and one hit in six scoreless innings in the start before that. On Thursday, he became the first pitcher since 1938 to throw at least 20 scoreless innings and allow fewer than three hits over a span of three starts.
Cease’s dominance has become so normal that catcher Campusano was unaware the Nationals did not have a hit until he checked the box score in the sixth inning.
“I was like ‘Oh, OK. Let’s just keep it going,’ ” Campusano said. “… He’s been in the zone. His stuff has been working. He’s been attacking hitters. Nothing changed.”
One of the four times this season Cease had gone at least seven innings while allowing one hit was June 26 against the Nationals. That hit came on a flared single to center field by Nick Senzel, who was released earlier this month.
Despite walking Lane Thomas twice, Cease had faced the minimum number of batters through four innings. Thomas was caught stealing in the first inning and eliminated by an inning-ending double play in the fourth.
Juan Yepez almost dropped in a single to start the fifth inning on a ball skied to shallow center field that second baseman Xander Bogaerts raced back to try to catch, only to have the ball pop up out of his glove and into that of center fielder Jackson Merrill for the first out.
Over his final four innings on Saturday in Cleveland and first six innings today against the Nationals, Dylan Cease has not allowed a hit.
And for the second time in four games, a Padres starter has taken a no-hitter into the seventh inning. https://t.co/Qv5cDzTNhX— Kevin Acee (@sdutKevinAcee) July 25, 2024
Cease went on to strike out James Wood and get Keibert Ruiz on a groundout. And with that, Cease had gone nine innings without allowing a hit going back to the start of the fourth inning on Saturday in Cleveland.
Then he was through the sixth in 13 pitches and, after walking Abrams to start the seventh, got through that with two groundouts and a fly ball to left field.
As he walked off the field, having thrown 94 pitches, Cease motioned toward the dugout several times with a thumbs up and a shake of his head in the affirmative. When he arrived, manager Mike Shildt told him, “I think that’s good today.”
Cease pushed back.
His recollection of that conversation: “I just said, ‘I feel really good right now. Next inning, if I’m kind of erratic or use up too many pitches, pull me then but give me a shot, at least.’”
Musgrove, who was standing nearby, offered input.
Musgrove, who threw 112 pitches in his no-hitter on April 9, 2021, recalled his contribution to the conversation being: “I said, ‘He’s still throwing 100, and he’s not even at 100 pitches yet. Let him go.’ “
Cease ed former Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright as the only pitcher to talk Shildt out of removing him from a game.
“I think it’s important in my chair to be able to be open-minded and listen to your athletes,” Shildt said. “He felt good, he felt convicted, he made a really strong case. I mean, look, I want him to go back out too, but I’m looking at the big picture and the factor. But once I cleared that with him, he was good. … To his credit, he went back out, straight attack mode and defense made their plays.”
Cease threw just nine pitches in the eighth inning, but not before another fine (and almost disastrous) play.
After Cease struck out Wood, Ruiz hit a grounder to the right side that Bogaerts slid to grab. But when he went to make the throw, from his knees after making a 360-degree turn, the ball slipped out of Bogaerts’ hand. He batted the ball back to his bare hand with his glove and made a rifled throw to first baseman Jake Cronenworth just in time to get Ruiz.
Xander Bogaerts sticks with it in the eighth to preserve Dylan Cease's no-hitter! pic.twitter.com/71NUuDX4FX
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) July 25, 2024
“Oh, for sure,” Bogaerts said of that being ruled a hit if he had not made the play. “I was on the ground. Me, no. I’d have given an error, but they wouldn’t. I’m throwing from my knees. Hit.”
Cease got the next batter, Luis Garcia Jr., on a groundout to shortstop and walked off the mound pumping his fist slowly.
“I just wanted to keep going,” he said.
A slow roller by Ildemargo Vargas to Bogaerts got the first out in the ninth. One pitch later, Jacob Young grounded out to Kim. Then, on Cease’s 114th pitch, came Abrams’ line drive. And then a celebration.
All this came after rain forced the game to be stopped nine minutes after it started.
It was dry, and the clouds didn’t seem all that threatening during the game’s first three at-bats, which left the Padres with two runners on after Donovan Solano’s single and Bogaerts’ walk.
The rain, steady right from the start, began as clean-up hitter Manny Machado stepped to the plate. Many fans headed for cover, but a good number stayed put as Machado made the inning’s second out on a soft line drive to second base.
It began to pour as Cronenworth was seeing five pitches, wiping his bat on his pant legs a few times as he worked a walk, which loaded the bases.
Water was dripping from Kim’s helmet, which he shook as he walked from the on-deck area.
He was in the batter’s box for one pitch before crew chief Adrian Johnson ran in from second base with his hands raised.
The deluge continued for about 20 minutes, turning the warning track into a brown puddle surrounding the grass. That took the longest to clear before the game could resume.
Kim was the first Padres player on the field, running along the edge of the infield as the final preparations were made on the field and the umpires reemerged in new outfits. among them was home plate umpire Ramon De Jesus, who was behind the plate in 2022 when Cease got through 26 outs without allowing a hit against the Twins.
On the eighth pitch Kim saw after the storm, a 3-2 cutter at the bottom of the zone, Kim flared a soft line drive into left-center that bounced past diving Wood as all three runners raced around the bases and scored.
Nationals starter Patrick Corbin was at 55 pitches after two innings. But he ended up getting through seven innings while throwing just 54 more pitches, which was second among the impressive feats done by a starting pitcher in Thursday’s game.
“That,” Shildt said, “was a magnificent, obviously historical, day for Dylan Cease.”
