The Toronto Blue Jays made franchise history when they gave Dylan Cease a record-setting seven-year contract in free agency for $210 million.
They surely would’ve hoped he could make history on the mound for them, too.
On Friday night, that’s what Cease did.
It just wasn’t the kind of history that the Blue Jays would’ve hoped for from Cease.
Dylan Cease Unfortunate History
Cease threw a pitching line that had never happened before in MLB history.
Against the Rangers, he went 2.2 innings, allowing three hits and walking six while giving up one earned run and striking out three.
That combination of five statistics had never happened:
🚨 PITCHERGAMI 🚨
Dylan Cease just threw a line that has NEVER happened in MLB history:
2.2 IP | 3 H | 1 ER | 6 BB | 3 K
TOR @ TEX
That’s the 389th Pitchergami of 2026 and 1 of 83,614+ unique lines on record.— Pitchergami (@pitchergami) September 19, 2026
At first glance, it’s amazing that there are still pitching lines that have never happened before.
Then you look at this one, and it kind of makes sense.
Just in the walks and hits, Cease gave up nine baserunners while only getting eight outs. Generally, that would give up more than one earned run.
And in a past era, a pitcher that had given up only one earned run may be left in the game even with all the walks.
But everything factored together gave Cease this specific line, and it’s certainly a unique one.
Dylan Cease Trended This Way
The thing is, there was already a potential cause for concern entering the night.
A post on social media earlier in the day showed how Cease’s velocity had declined all season long.
In April, he averaged 97.8 miles per hour on his four-seam fastball
Cease kept that exact mark on his heater in May, 97.8 MPH again.
It declined to 97.4 miles per hour in June, a small enough decrease to not worry much.
Then in July, Cease was down to 96.7 MPH on his four-seam fastball on average. His August velocity was an average of 95.8 miles per hour.
And in September, Cease entered Friday night’s start at 95.3 miles per hour on average on his four-seam fastball.
It doesn’t automatically mean he’s hurt, but it also doesn’t seem like it can be ideal.
And on Friday night, Cease’s results finally reflected the potential that he’s got something a little off with him.
Fastball velocity doesn’t inherently impact walk numbers, so if you were trying to create a correlation here, it’d be more that Cease’s arm isn’t at full strength, which impacted both velocity and control.
Of course, there are other possible explanations.
All that’s clear is that Cease didn’t have it on Friday night, and it cost him.
Blue Jays’ Dylan Cease Makes Baseball History