Dylan Cease Loses No-Hitter Bid in the Ninth, Then Gets Awkwardly Confused for a Selfie Request
Dylan Cease had the best pitching performance of his career on Wednesday against the San Francisco Giants and still walked away with a broken heart and a viral clip.
The Toronto Blue Jays right-hander took a no-hitter into the ninth inning at Oracle Park before Heliot Ramos led off with a single that ended his bid. Cease finished with eight scoreless innings, one hit, three walks, and 11 strikeouts on a career-high 118 pitches. Manager John Schneider stuck with him until the no-hitter was gone, then handed the ball to Tyler Rogers.
Toronto won 10-0. Cease deserved the postgame interview. Then the interview turned into a moment nobody expected.
A team staff member walked over to Cease in the dugout to point him toward the broadcast. He apparently thought she was there for a selfie, which turned into an awkward beat of him processing that she was just doing her job. The clip made the rounds on social media within an hour of the game ending.
None of that should overshadow how good this outing was. Cease is now sitting on a 6-4 record with a 2.56 ERA and leads the American League with 148 strikeouts. He is 30 years old and pitching like a Cy Young contender.
What matters for the Blue Jays is the shape of the rotation. Toronto has quietly climbed back into the AL East race behind Cease, Kevin Gausman, and the resurgence of Bowden Francis. Add Chris Bassitt as a mid-rotation piece and the Blue Jays actually have the pitching depth to hang with New York and Boston down the stretch.
The no-hitter itself would have been the seventh in Blue Jays history. Cease has flirted with them before. He nearly threw one with the White Sox in 2022. He has the stuff, the swing-and-miss profile, and the mentality to get one eventually. He is one of a small handful of active pitchers who could probably throw two.
Losing it on a bloop single with three outs to go is exactly the kind of ending that makes fans of the pitcher want to throw a chair. Ramos did not hit it hard. He got just enough of a slider away to line it into center. That was the ballgame.
The Giants side of this is worth mentioning too. Being no-hit in your own building is embarrassing. Getting shut down 10-0 by a team you should be competing with is worse. San Francisco is not a serious playoff threat and Wednesday night did nothing to change that impression.
Cease will get his no-hitter someday. Wednesday was one out of every three that he threw for two hours before that. The awkward selfie moment will be the meme that lives forever, but the eight innings of one-hit ball were what people should actually remember.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
