Make some time to watch some Dylan Cease knuckle curves - Sox Machine

Dylan Cease has fooled us with outstanding breaking-ball command for short spells before, just like he’s made it look like he’s figured out how to stop yanking his fastball. Whenever he takes the mound, there’s always a chance that he can assume the form of a swing-and-miss monster, which makes it all frustrating that he hadn’t done it for more than chunks of starts before it all slips his grasp.

His seven-inning shutout of the Detroit Tigers in the back half of Thursday’s doubleheader is the longest he’s ever sustained that form, but in order to be a starter who can make a difference on a depth chart, he’ll have to do it again. Right now, he’s merely a decent choice for crossing a day off a calendar, but when Carlos Rodón and Michael Kopech are delivering more than anybody dreamed of this soon, the Sox’s standards for starts are higher than usual. It’s great that Cease’s talent alone feels insufficient, and that performance is required. Let’s see if he can do it again, and against a better lineup.

Now that the sobering truth is out of the way, let’s have some fun.

It’s been a long damn time since we’ve seen a White Sox pitcher overwhelm a team with such a dizzying array of beautiful, beautiful knuckle curves. Statcast said Cease threw 14 of them, and if that feels like an unremarkable quantity, you’d have reason for thinking so. He’s had 11 starts with more.

However, 10 of those starts came in his rookie year, before Cease turned to the slider as his strike-grabbing pitch. For instance, he threw 30 curves against the Twins on July 26, 2019. Don’t feel bad if you can’t recall it. He allowed three runs and 10 baserunners over five innings while throwing 98 pitches, so blends in with most of his other outings. It was just his inconsistent secondary pitch, not the weapon it was last night.

Since introducing the slider, he hadn’t been able to turn to the curveball with the frequency he showed on Thursday. He only did it once in 2020 – against the Cubs on Aug. 23 – and even then, he only got a couple of whiffs on 15 pitches, and fewer than half of them played as strikes. The slider was the star that night.

So yes, Thursday’s breaking ball bonanza broke new ground. Of the 14 he threw, eight played for strikes, and one of the balls should’ve gone his way. Of the four swings, three were whiffs. The other four strikes were called, including this dandy to end the game.

But why should we only look at the last one? Let’s look at all of the other good ones. Here are the other four that were taken for strikes (including one ball that should’ve been called in his favor):

Notice the count? 0-0 on all of them. Cease showed no fear letting them fly up in the zone, counting on the sharpness to keep hitters from thinking about swinging.

Here are the whiffs:

You’ll see Jeimer Candelario in both montages, and two of them came in the same at-bat, their second battle of the game. In between the first-pitch curve for strike one and the fifth-pitch curve for the swinging strike three, Cease threw a high fastball that Candelario fouled off. Watching Candelario’s reaction to the curve that followed, you can see how these pitches are supposed to end up together.

Now, can Cease replicate this kind of success in his next start, which would be in Cincinnati if the schedule holds? Here’s where a less seasoned blogger might write, “It will be interesting to see if he can command his curve in future starts,” but that’s just another way to say, “Hell if I know.”

It’s also a little bit besides the point here, which is 1) he did it against an MLB team over the course of an entire start, 2) it was fun to watch, and 3) it’s fun to rewatch. It buys him a few more looks, it buys Kopech a few more weeks in the flex role he’s taken to so beautifully unless a situation arises elsewhere, and that’s great for everybody as the first month of the season comes to a close.

(Photo by David John Griffin/Icon Sportswire)

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Make some time to watch some Dylan Cease knuckle curves - Sox Machine
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