Blue Jays ace Dylan Cease blanks Red Sox with one-hit shutout

Over the course of a long baseball season, sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug.

With Dylan Cease on the mound Saturday, the Red Sox didn’t know what hit them.

The Toronto Blue Jays ace threw his third career complete-game shutout, holding the Red Sox to just one hit and three walks with 12 strikeouts in a masterful performance. He got plenty of early run support from his offense, who scored five runs on six consecutive hits against Sonny Gray with two outs in the third inning, and from there Cease was in full control.

The end result was a 6-0 Red Sox loss, Boston’s most lopsided defeat in nearly a month.

“It’s the story of the game, not much to say, he was awfully good, and in the zone, frequently in the zone and ahead in the count, he had good stuff,” said Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy. “There are games you have to tip your cap and he threw the ball very, very well.”

Coming off an outing last Sunday that he described as “rusty,” Sonny Gray was initially much sharper out of the gate in his second start since the All-Star break. The Red Sox right-hander sent the Blue Jays down 1-2-3 in the first on only eight pitches, drawing two quick groundouts before striking out Kazuma Okamoto.

As his outing went along Gray also benefitted from some terrific outfield defense, especially in the second after he allowed a pair of Blue Jays singles to start the inning. Jarren Duran first made a great running grab in left field for the first out, and then Ceddanne Rafaela made an outstanding diving catch in center on a sinking liner by Yohendrick Piñango, which he followed with a quick throw to second to double up George Springer to end the inning.

Tracy said in the moment Rafaela’s play gave the Red Sox a chance.

“My initial thought was it’s going to bounce in front and maybe he’s got a play to throw him out at the plate,” Tracy said. “But instead he catches it like he often does and keeps the game where it was.”

Is there any ball hit to center field Rafaela doesn’t think he can catch?

“No I think the only ones are the ones I don’t move because it’s a home run right away,” Rafaela said. “But I think those are the only ones I think I’m not going to catch.”

After Gray drew two quick outs to start the third, things rapidly went awry.

Gray first allowed a double to Nathan Lukes, who came in to score on Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s subsequent RBI single. Kazuma Okamoto then hit a sharp liner down the third base line that Caleb Durbin knocked down to limit what could have been an RBI double to a single, but it wound up not mattering when Springer stepped up and atoned for his base running blunder, smashing a three-run home run to the Green Monster seats.

The Blue Jays weren’t finished either. Daulton Varsho kept the rally going with another single, Ernie Clement drove him home with an RBI double, and by the time Gray finally recorded the inning’s third out he’d given up five runs on six consecutive hits, all with two outs.

Gray was saved from allowing a sixth run in the fourth after Duran threw out Andrés Giménez at the plate from left field to end the inning, but the right-hander still finished with his worst line in months. He allowed five runs over five innings on 10 hits with no walks and three strikeouts, which snapped Gray’s streak of nine consecutive quality starts and marked the most runs he’s allowed in a game since April 14 in Minnesota.

Following the outing, Gray said he felt like he threw the ball early but that once he got to two strikes he couldn’t put anyone away. That combined with the Blue Jays aggressive approach was a recipe for disaster.

“It was just a bad combination of me being (expletive) and (them) having that approach,” Gray said. “They’re a contact-oriented team, and it just happened like ‘that’ right?”

Meanwhile, Cease was dealing.

The Blue Jays ace, who started the All-Star Game for the American League earlier this month, retired the first 14 Red Sox batters he faced and carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning.

Boston’s first baserunner didn’t come until the bottom of the fifth, when Durbin drew what wound up being an inconsequential walk, and Andruw Monasterio finally broke up Cease’s no-hit bid with a leadoff double to start the sixth.

That wound up being Boston’s only hit of the game, and the Blue Jays wrapped up the scoring with an RBI single by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the top of the ninth.

“He had his stuff today,” Rafaela said. “He executed, we didn’t make adjustments, we have to come back tomorrow.”

There was one brief moment in the bottom of the ninth where it looked like Connor Wong had a leadoff home run down the left field line to break up Cease’s shutout bid. But the ball was ruled foul, the call stood on review, and Cease came back to strike out Wong.

Cease then issued his third walk of the day to Anthony Seigler, but from there he struck out Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu to finish off his masterpiece. His 120th and final pitch of the day was a changeup up and away that Abreu challenged, forcing Cease and all 36,902 fans in attendance to wait for the ABS challenge to confirm the game-ending strike three.

Cease became the first opposing pitcher to throw a complete-game shutout against the Red Sox since Minnesota’s Joe Ryan accomplished the feat on June 22, 2023. The last time it happened to the Red Sox at Fenway Park was April 27, 2017, when former Yankees great Masahiro Tanaka pulled it off, and the last pitcher to one-hit the Red Sox in Boston was former Mariners ace Felix Hernandez all the way back on April 11, 2007.

The Red Sox (53-50) will look to regroup Sunday when they face the Blue Jays one more time with a chance to clinch their sixth consecutive series victory. Ranger Suarez (4-3, 3.15) is expected to be activated from the IL, and he’s due to face off against Blue Jays right-hander Kevin Gausman (4-9, 4.51).