Red Sox can’t solve All-Star hurler Dylan Cease in historic shutout loss to Blue Jays
For more than a month, opponents proved incapable of identifying a way to slow the Red Sox bulldozer. Over a 30-game span entering Saturday, the team had forged a 24-6 record, including a 16-1 record since July 3.
But on Saturday, the Blue Jays finally identified an obstacle too great for the Red Sox to surmount: The best pitcher in the American League.
Righthander Dylan Cease delivered one of the greatest performances by a visiting pitcher in Fenway Park history — twirling a complete-game, one-hit shutout with 12 strikeouts in a 6-0 Blue Jays victory. He became just the 16th pitcher ever, and first since Félix Hernández in 2007, to throw a one-hit shutout against the Sox at Fenway, and just the fifth to do so while recording at least 10 strikeouts.
As a result, the game was rarely competitive.
Sox starter Sonny Gray had been a model of consistency, recording nine consecutive quality starts entering Saturday — including five straight in which he’d logged at least six innings with no more than one run allowed.
The Blue Jays were unimpressed, especially in five-run third inning.
Though Gray’s control — which he characterized as “rusty” in his first start out of the All-Star break — returned to his typically high standards, Toronto’s lineup went into attack mode with six straight hits, all of which came with two outs in the frame.
Nathan Lukes started the rally with a double to left, and scored on a single by Vlad Guerrero Jr. Kazuma Okamoto’s single put two on for George Springer. Gray got ahead of Springer, 0-2, but his curveball caught just enough of the zone for Springer to line it just over the Wall for a three-run homer and a 4-0 Blue Jays lead.
Two more Jays hits, a Dalton Varsho singled followed by a Ernie Clement’s RBI double to left, extended Toronto’s lead to 5-0.
Though Gray rebounded — aided in part when left fielder Jarren Duran threw out Andrés Giménez at the plate to end the fourth — to record a pair of scoreless innings, his outing nonetheless ranked as one of his worst in a standout season. His five runs allowed matched a season-high, while his 10-hit yield was his worst as a Red Sox. Gray also became the first Sox starter to allow as many as five earned runs since July 1.
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Of course, the five-run bounty seemed excessive amid the dominance of Cease, who proved worthy of his recent honor as the AL’s starting All-Star pitcher. The righthander was overpowering, retiring the first 14 he faced before conceding a two-out walk to Caleb Durbin in the fifth.
The Sox finally managed a hit when Andruw Monasterio pulled a double down the left-field line to lead off the sixth, but Cease was unfazed — retiring the next three to preserve his shutout.
For Cease, the dominance was nothing new. He’d already taken a no-hit bid into the ninth earlier this month, and entered Saturday leading AL pitchers in strikeout rate (36 percent) and opponent’s batting average (.196). In short, he’s been the most unhittable pitcher in the AL this season.
He thus seemed to have an unexpected hint of vulnerability at the start when his four-seam fastball sat at a puzzlingly low 93-94 m.p.h. But his velocity increased in each of the next six innings, as he fired 96-98 blurs by the final three innings — a development that made his electric slider (11 swings-and-misses) even more unhittable.
Cease struck out the side in the eighth, then worked around a walk to do the same in the ninth, punctuated by a changeup that froze Wilyer Abreu to end it.
Cease became the first visiting pitcher to register a complete game shutout at Fenway Park since April 27, 2017, when Masahiro Tanaka did the honors. In Fenway history, only Mike Mussina in 2001 had more strikeouts (13) than Cease in a complete-game, one-hit shutout by a visitor.
In mop-up duty behind Gray, long reliever Alec Gamboa provided a reprieve to the Sox bullpen by logging a career-high four innings, allowing one run on five hits and one walk while striking out six.
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