White Sox pitcher Dylan Cease has stat line not seen since 1968

White Sox pitcher Dylan Cease had himself a nice night Tuesday night, with a stat line not seen in over 50 years.

Ranked as a top-30 prospect in all of baseball heading into 2019 by Baseball Prospectus and Baseball America, Chicago White Sox pitcher Dylan Cease is starting to fulfill his potential. Through six starts now this season, he has a 2.37 ERA. Over his last two starts, he has 20 strikeouts and three walks over 13 innings.

Cease twirled his most recent gem against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night, with six shutout innings as he allowed just one hit with 11 strikeouts and three walks. He took a no-hitter into the fifth inning. Since the game was on the road in Cincinnati, Cease also got to hit for himself.

Dylan Cease had a stat line not seen in over 50 years

Cease had not faced live pitching since 2014, when he was a senior in high school. But he went 3-for-3 with a double and a run scored against Reds’ pitchers, in a 9-0 win for the White Sox.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Cease is the fourth pitcher in the Expansion Era (since 1961) to get a hit in each of his first three plate appearances, joining Steven Matz (2015), T.J. Tucker (2000-02) and Larry Miller (1964). But the young right-hander’s overall stat line has not been seen in over 50 years, since Catfish Hunter threw a perfect game against the Minnesota Twins on May 8,1968. Hunter went 3-for-4 with a double and three RBI to go with his outing on the mound.

Cease will obviously only hit for himself when he starts in a National League park in an interleague game, and Tuesday night was the first time he had done so in 32 major league starts. The looming expected advent of the universal DH means pitchers eventually won’t be hitting much (or really at all). So Cease, as an American League pitcher, may literally never pick up a bat again in his career. But that just makes his performance Tuesday night more memorable, and extra special.