San Diego Padres ace Dylan Cease made it into the seventh inning before the New York Yankees broke up his no-hitter. Five pitches later, he was exiting with an injury.
Cease appeared to tweak his wrist or hand on a pitch to Jasson Dominguez, the next batter up after Cody Bellinger blasted a home run into the right field stands.
With the pitcher flexing his hand, Padres manager Mike Shildt and trainers came to the mound. They ultimately decided to pull the pitcher.
Cease was at 89 pitches on the night. He'd thrown 90+ in his last two starts, so Shildt didn't make a mistake by keeping him in the game. It was reasonable to let him try to finish out the seventh, even after Bellinger spoiled his night.
It's not clear exactly what the injury is. There's a chance the Padres were just not taking any chances, especially when history was no longer on the line. Unfortunately for Cease, it was a doubly disappointing way to end his strongest outing of the season. Going into Wednesday night, he had a 5.61 ERA, largely tied to a nine-run disaster in early April. He has allowed no more than two runs in each of his five starts since.
Whether this might have been purely a precaution, it won't do anything to convince managers not to risk their pitchers for the sake of a no-hitter.
Dylan Cease injury after spoiled no-no bid validates MLB managers who have pulled pitchers from no-hitters
It's fitting this happened just a couple of days after Ross Stripling announced his retirement. In 2016, Dave Roberts famously pulled the former Dodgers pitcher in the middle of a no-hitter. He had gone 7.1 innings and exited after throwing 100 pitches.
Later that same season, Roberts did the same to Rich Hill during a perfect game bid. He wasn't the only manager to make that tough call in 2016 either. Marlins manager Don Mattingly pulled Adam Conley after 7.2 innings against the Brewers. The following year, Mattingly again yanked Wei-Yin Chen after seven innings against the Mariners. In 2022 he did it again to Clayton Kershaw.
Aborted no-hit bids have been annoyingly regular since then. Daniel Ponce de Leon pitched seven no-hit innings in his MLB debut in 2018 only to get pulled. In 2019, Trevor Bauer didn't finish his no-hit bid against the Blue Jays. In 2021, Padres manager Jayce Tingler pulled the plug on Blake Snell after seven. Corbin Burnes got the same treatment that year from Craig Counsell.
Another Padres pitcher, Sean Manaea, wasn't allowed to finish his bid in 2022. Bob Melvin made that call. There were six different no-hit bids ended early that year. There were four in 2023, including one more for Burnes and Snell.
There were six in 2024, the last of which saw Counsell end Shota Imanaga's night. At least that one ended in a combined no-hitter via Nate Pearson and Porter Hodge.