If right-hander Dylan Cease once had dreams of pitching for the Cubs in a playoff game at Wrigley Field, they had long faded by the time he toed the rubber Wednesday.
“It feels like a lifetime ago,” Cease said Tuesday of his time with the Cubs, who drafted him out of high school in 2014 and traded him to the White Sox in 2017 as a minor-leaguer.
At last pitching in a playoff game at Wrigley, Cease helped keep his current team’s season alive.
The Padres punched back with a 3-0 win in Game 2 of their wild-card series against the Cubs.
“Dylan was tremendous,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said after the victory, which evened the best-of-three series. “He did a fantastic job.”
Cease was not out for revenge on his old organization. Rather, he had designs on rewriting his personal playoff script. His first three career postseason starts were not so great.
He didn’t make it out of the second inning in the Sox’ most recent playoff appearance in 2021 and started twice against the champion Dodgers last year, in his first October as a Padre, and was tagged for eight runs in a combined five innings. All told, he carried a 12.91 postseason ERA into this game.
It hadn’t dampened Cease’s enthusiasm for playoff baseball. But he was out to change his narrative, saying Tuesday, “I want to have some better results than I have had.”
While ESPN was busy plastering Cease’s playoff numbers all over the broadcast, that track record didn’t diminish his teammates’ faith in him. Second baseman Jake Cronenworth said Wednesday that “the confidence with him is through the roof.”
Left fielder Gavin Sheets told the Sun-Times on Monday: “It’s a guy that we expect to rise to the occasion. There’s not many guys with better stuff than he’s got, and I fully expect him to bring it and be the best version of himself. . . . As far as I’m concerned, he walks on the mound with a 0.00 ERA.”
Cease delivered, backing up that belief with a tone-setting performance. He shut down a suddenly silent Cubs lineup in 3⅔ scoreless innings. Cease allowed only three hits and didn’t walk anyone until the intentional pass that ended his outing.
The start was relatively brief, a product of modern playoff baseball more than a need for a quick hook. He struck out five batters, including cleanup man Kyle Tucker on a 100 mph fastball in the fourth inning.
“He had electric stuff,” Shildt said.
Cease accomplished his No. 1 mission, helping the Padres to a victory that kept them in the dance. But he also exorcised his personal playoff demons.
The former South Side Cy Young candidate and ex-Cubs farmhand is hungry for more of the sport’s brightest spotlight.
It will have to come at the expense of his former city.
“Playoff baseball is different,” he said. “It’s next-level energy, next-level pressure and all of that. I felt calm and I felt ready for really all my [career] outings in the postseason. But having a little bit of success is definitely a massive confidence-booster.
“Now we’ve got to get it done tomorrow, so I can get another chance.”
