With two outs in the seventh inning Wednesday, the Cubs’ Michael Busch wobbled in the batter’s box, a big swing on a back-foot slider having thrown him off-balance. Then Padres starter Dylan Cease came at him with a pitch up and outside. Busch stopped his swing early, but the ball dipped into the strike zone for a called strike three.
That’s how Cease’s day ended, and Busch wasn’t his only strikeout victim in a 3-0 loss at Wrigley Field — not by a long shot. The Cubs looked lifeless against him, striking out 12 times over his seven scoreless innings.
“Cease was really good,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “When you’re seeing 99’s [mph] in the seventh inning, you know that’s a pitcher that was feeling good. And the slider was really, really good today.”
The Cubs drafted Cease, a right-hander, in 2014 and traded him to the White Sox three years later as part of a package for lefty Jose Quintana. Cease spent his first five major-league seasons with the Sox before they dealt him to the Padres in mid-March.
“It’s always good to come back,” Cease said this week. “Obviously I don’t have quite as much history with the Cubs, but I enjoy Wrigley [Field]. I enjoy Chicago.”
His outing Wednesday extended what has been a strong start — and exactly the kind of rebound from a disappointing 2023 that the Padres bet on when they acquired him. In eight starts, Cease is 5-2 with a 2.19 ERA.
“I think it’s just a continuation of, really, a process I started last year,” he said. “It just took me a full year to figure out what works for me. I think that’s just baseball. We’re not robots out there. So sometimes mechanical cues and feels and different things can take some time.”
Cease said the adjustment that made it all click was figuring out how to avoid opening up in his delivery.
“For me, anyways, the most difficult thing for pitching is staying closed because it is such a rotational movement,” he said. “So [it’s] just finding the right rhythm. With pitching, if you’re off just a little, the ball goes this way or that way or cuts. It’s really a subtle thing that you have to consistently be where you need to be to make the ball do what you want it to do and make it go where it needs to go.”
Only catcher Yan Gomes managed a hit off Cease on Wednesday. His chopped comebacker in the third deflected off Cease’s glove, giving Gomes enough time to make it to first base. Only three other batters reached base all game, on a hit-by-pitch and two walks.
Although Cease threw 113 pitches, tying a career high, the velocity on his fastball ticked up a little — 0.6 mph above his season average. And his sliders combined for 23 whiffs and called strikes, according to Statcast.
“As the lefty, the [slider] that’s away from you backs up and plays more like a changeup, and the one that’s down and in really goes,” said Ian Happ, who struck out twice and drew a walk. “So [Cease’s] two shapes of sliders played really well off the fastball that he does a really good job keeping up in the zone.”
Despite scoring 11 runs over two games against the Brewers last weekend, the Cubs have been inconsistent on offense recently.
“We’ve done a good job of scoring what we need to but haven’t put up a bunch of big numbers,” Happ said. “So, the pitching staff’s been great. They’ve been holding us together, and [the offense] will come around. We’re going to make some noise like we did earlier in the year, and that’s just a matter of time.”
