Things didn't go as planned for the Toronto Blue Jays and ace Dylan Cease to open their pivotal series against the Texas Rangers.
Cease battled both his command and velocity throughout his start against the Rangers and wasn't able to complete the third inning before turning the ball over to manager John Schneider.
The 30-year-old walked off the mound after 2.2 innings of work, having allowed three hits, four runs (one earned), and six walks while striking out three.
It marked his shortest appearance of the season.
Cease worked around some trouble early, inducing an inning-ending double play off the bat of Brandon Nimmo in the first after issuing a pair of one-out walks.
But the free passes and an untimely error cost the righty in the second.
After loading the bases with one out in the frame, Rangers centre-fielder Evan Carter chopped a ground ball up the middle that took a weird bounce off the mound and went straight to Blue Jays shortstop Ernie Clement.
Clement opted to try for an out at third, but his throw hit Jake Burger in the back and caromed down the left-field line, allowing two runs to score on the play.
Texas then added two extra runs on a sacrifice fly from Ezequiel Duran and an RBI double by Corey Seager.
Cease came back out for the third but saw his pitch count climb as he loaded the bases once again on a pair of walks and a Nicky Lopez single. He did bounce back to get the second out of the inning by striking out Elias Díaz before Brendan Cellucci entered and escaped the jam unscathed with a punchout of his own.
When all was said and done for Cease, he had tossed 74 pitches and 36 strikes while averaging 93.6 m.p.h. with his fastball — 3.3 m.p.h. slower than his season average of 96.9. — continuing a troubling trend of diminished velocity for the all-star.
Toronto had bumped Cease's scheduled start up a day so that he was opening this series in Arlington on regular rest, rather than leveraging Thursday's off-day to give the eight-year veteran an extra day and have him pitch on turn in Saturday's contest.
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