Padres’ Dylan Cease, after no-hit bid and forearm scare, optimistic about ‘freak cramp’

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NEW YORK — San Diego Padres right-hander Dylan Cease looked to be on the verge of something special Wednesday night. It was the bottom of the seventh at Yankee Stadium, Aaron Judge had struck out three times, and Cease, the author of the 324th no-hitter in major-league history, was bidding to throw the 327th. Then, in an instant, the evening appeared to turn into something potentially ruinous.

Two batters and eight pitches after a Cody Bellinger home run reduced Cease’s outing from magical to merely masterful, the Padres starter threw a 1-2 slider that Jasson Domínguez fouled off. Cease hopped at the end of his delivery. He took a couple of steps forward as his right hand curled into a fist. He re-extended his fingers, wiped them against his right quad and began to flex his hand. Noticing all this, Martín Maldonado motioned to the visiting dugout. Soon, the veteran catcher, Padres manager Mike Shildt, pitching coach Ruben Niebla and head athletic trainer Mark Rogow converged on the mound.

Moments later, Cease walked off the field alongside Rogow. The at-bat against Domínguez was still unfinished.

A little more than an hour later, after the Padres absorbed a 4-3, 10-inning walk-off loss to the New York Yankees, there was another feeling inside the visiting clubhouse besides disappointment:

Relief.

“Just a forearm cramp,” Cease said. “It basically, like, made my hand close tight for a couple seconds. I don’t think it’s anything too serious. I honestly was going to throw some warmup pitches and see (if I could stay in the game). But I think the smart thing was to do what we did there.”

Belli ties it up 💪 pic.twitter.com/T8ZnugqlqP

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) May 8, 2025

One of the Padres’ best pitchers seemed to have avoided significant injury — for now. Shildt said he was still receiving feedback from the training staff. The manager described his level of relief as “quite high.”

“The trainer said, initially, he’s optimistic,” Shildt said. “We’ve been down this road. You know, we’ll see what it looks like. Dylan wasn’t overly concerned in the moment.”

The Padres indeed have been down this road before. Around baseball, they aren’t alone. It’s not uncommon for a pitcher — especially a hard thrower like Cease — to encounter an apparent mild twinge or something similarly minor. Nor is it rare for something minor to turn out to be something serious. Padres starter Yu Darvish, for example, stopped throwing this past spring training because of what the team initially termed “general fatigue.” The 38-year-old later opened the season on the injured list because of elbow inflammation, and though Darvish is scheduled to face live hitters Thursday, his season debut likely remains weeks away.

Late Wednesday, however, the Padres felt they had legitimate reasons for optimism. Cease said he hadn’t felt any pain on the mound. He said, after the game, that he still wasn’t feeling pain. Center fielder Jackson Merrill noted that Cease had not displayed any sign that he was feeling pain.

“It’s just like, you look at him. You know he’s OK,” Merrill said. “Most guys, when they actually do something serious, they’ll show emotion. I think pretty much everybody does that. But he’s OK.”

For 6 1/3 innings, Cease had appeared more than OK. He entered Wednesday’s game as one of the better starters in baseball, despite a 5.61 earned run average that was a partial byproduct of mechanical struggles. Then, he later said, something clicked. Cease established a blistering fastball, challenging the Yankees inside the strike zone. He struck out Judge, the sport’s most fearsome hitter, with a vintage slider just below the zone. The two weapons worked in near-perfect concert: Cease threw his two hardest pitches of the season — 99.3 mph and 99.2 mph — for strikes to Judge. He had 14 swings-and-misses with 37 sliders.

And he easily could have kept going. His final pitch to Dominguez was his 89th. Had the seventh inning not gone sideways, Shildt would have had a decision to make.

“You get to a certain point and you know, OK, he’s on regular rest. He’s going to get extra rest. He’s had, because he’s throwing a no-hitter … virtually no stress. He’s 99 (mph) leading into the inning before,” Shildt said. “It was going to be a read-it-and-react situation.”

In the end, Shildt said, the Bellinger home run — against a 98.1 mph fastball at the top of the zone — a league-leading bullpen and an injury scare made the decision to remove Cease a “no-brainer.” The Padres, who had received a fourth-inning home run from Merrill, got a go-ahead RBI single from the star outfielder in the top of the eighth. A sacrifice fly gave the visitors a 3-1 lead.

Jackson just got all of that one 👀 pic.twitter.com/dU7hIAy6XD

— San Diego Padres (@Padres) May 8, 2025

Then, the bottom of the inning went sideways. Jason Adam, who had come in for Cease and struck out Domínguez, returned to the mound. One of the majors’ better relievers proceeded to issue a leadoff walk to the Yankees’ No. 8 hitter. Former Padres center fielder Trent Grisham made Adam pay an immediate price, clubbing a tying, pinch hit home run.

“Honestly, my bigger regret on the night is the walk,” Adam said. “If I get the first guy out and then I do the same thing to Grisham, we’re still up one. So, walks suck, especially when you don’t execute after.”

The contest dragged into extras. In the top of the 10th, the Padres failed to score despite having an automatic runner on second base and the top of their lineup up to bat. In the bottom of the 10th, the bottom of the Yankees’ order delivered a sacrifice bunt and then a walk-off sacrifice fly.

The Padres, who had rallied late to steal the first game of the series, had lost consecutive games after late rallies. They had lost the series despite Cease’s brilliance.

Afterward, there was at least initial encouragement over how he had pitched — and the thought that he could continue to pitch.

“Unbelievable. Lights out. Absolutely deserved a win,” Adam said. “That’s a tough lineup over there, and he made it look really, really easy. Yeah, he was locked in, and I’m excited to see that every fifth day for the rest of the season.”

Cease, for his part, acknowledged he had never experienced an in-game forearm cramp. He added that he expected to make his next scheduled start.

“I guess you never know, but I’m not in pain or anything,” he said. “I’m really not worried about it.”

Merrill, too, expected to make his next scheduled start. The center fielder, who returned Tuesday from a hamstring strain, took a Devin Williams fastball to the inside of his left forearm in the top of the 10th. Unlike Cease, he was allowed to stay in the game. Merrill’s elbow was wrapped in ice afterward, but he quickly declared: “I’m good.”

So it would be a surprise if, after a team off day, Merrill is not back in the lineup Friday at Coors Field. The Padres, meanwhile, will wait to see if Cease is truly OK. The right-hander has missed just one start in his career. In 2019, he was scratched from his final start as a Chicago White Sox rookie after tweaking a hamstring while throwing a warmup pitch.

That move turned out for the best. The Padres hope Wednesday’s precaution produces a similar result.

“I doubt it,” Cease said, when asked if he anticipated further testing on his forearm. “I mean, I passed all the other stuff with flying colors. And I really think it was just a freak cramp.”

(Photo: Al Bello / Getty Images)

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