Cease’s stumble adds to Blue Jays’ rotation uncertainty after loss to Rangers

ARLINGTON, TX — For nearly two weeks now, it’s felt like Dylan Cease has been white-knuckling his season, correcting and counter-steering every lurch and pull as it careens from his control.

He entered September a legitimate Cy Young candidate. But then, a sudden velocity dip. The hard-hit rate shooting the opposite direction. A five-steal night exposing a blind spot in his game. Velocity dropping again.

He adjusted his between-start routines, took an extra day’s rest, talked about maximizing what he has. Yet, in his second and third outings of September, Cease’s fastball averaged less than 95 m.p.h. — the first time that’s happened in his career. He earned only one whiff with the pitch across those two outings, the swings against him growing dangerously comfortable.

The Toronto Blue Jays no doubt would have preferred to give Cease that extra day’s rest again, following five walks his last time out. But multiple bullpen days per week are already putting undue pressure on the rest of the team’s pitching staff, leaving it ill-prepared to carry even more weight.

Plus, with so little margin for error remaining as the Blue Jays cling to relevance in a congested American League wild-card race, the short-term value of a far-from-fresh Cease pitching a critical game against the Texas Rangers on Friday appeared to trump the long-term concern over how his workload is impacting his effectiveness.

Appeared being the operative word. Now, following a 7-1 Blue Jays loss to the Rangers, in which Cease didn’t make it out of the third inning, the proposition has reversed. The Blue Jays must decide how much value there is in running this vastly diminished version of Cease out to the mound when his rotation turn comes back up in five days’ time. And they must weigh how much concern to have over the impact additional workload will have on his performance going forward.

Friday, Cease didn’t throw a first-pitch strike to any of the first six batters he faced, walking four of them. Along the way, Corey Seager and Wyatt Langford exploited his difficulties holding runners, stealing bases easily. He earned one whiff and one chase outside the zone with the 36 pitches he threw his first time through the order.

And incredibly, he was close to containing the damage. Cease escaped a jam in the first using a changeup to get a weak groundball double play from Brandon Nimmo and nearly did the same in the second when Evan Carter bounced a one-out curveball back up the middle. But Ernie Clement misfired a force attempt at third off the back of a baserunner’s head, allowing two to score.

A sacrifice fly and Seager double brought in two more before the second inning was through, and shortly after Cease loaded the bases again with two walks and a base hit in the third, his night was done.

In all, Cease located just 35 per cent of his pitches in the zone, including only 11 of his 36 fastballs, which led to a season-high six walks.