Padres Ace Has Added a New Pitch to His Repertoire

There is always room for improvement and San Diego Padres ace Dylan Cease has reached another level this spring.

The starting pitcher has added a two-seam fastball to his repertoire. The pitch typically runs in against right-handers and offers a complement to his best pitch, the slider, which breaks sharply away from righties.

Cease unleashed the new addition Saturday against the Reds in his Cactus League debut.

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“The biggest thing would be just to have something, a shape that goes in to righties, because obviously I have my slider, which goes away from them, the good spin and the riding four-seam,” Cease said. “So just having something that goes (a different direction) keeps them more honest.”

Cease threw 26 pitches in a scoreless first inning on Saturday. However, he gave up a home run on a four-seam fastball that was high in the zone just two pitches into the second inning. From there, he started using his two-seamer, retiring the final four batters, including three right-handed hitters, in just 13 pitches.

“That was its first time out in the wild,” Cease said. “Got swings and misses with it, foul balls. It played well.”

Dylan Cease racked up 224 strikeouts with a 3.47 ERA on his way to finishing 4th in NL Cy Young voting last season!

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In the past four seasons, the 29-year-old right-hander is one of just eight pitchers to log at least 710 innings, one of six to keep an ERA under 3.55, and the only one to rack up 891 strikeouts during that period.

In 2024, no pitcher in Major League Baseball threw 100 pitches more frequently than Cease, who did so 18 times. He also threw at least 84 pitches in all 32 of his non-rain-shortened starts, including nine outings where he pitched no more than five innings.

“We have a lot of strikeouts,” pitching coach Ruben Niebla said. “If we can minimize those strikeouts for earlier outs, it’d be great.”

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Minimizing strikeouts early will cut down on Cease's pitch count which will then, hopefully, leave him healthier when the postseason comes around.

However, it is crazy to think that the fourth-best pitcher in the National League, according to Cy Young voting, could be even better this season with a new weapon his opponents haven't seen.

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