I was watching the game on TV this morning and during the top of the first inning there was a rain delay. After the game resumed, Cease started pitching and the rest is history. There were two plays that could have cost Cease his no-hitter. In one, there was a hit just past second base and second baseman Xander Bogaerts was running backwards to catch it over his shoulder. The ball popped out of his glove but center-fielder Jackson Merrill backed him up and caught it. The second one was in the ninth inning when the ball was hit between first and second base. Bogaerts dove for the ball and as he transferred the ball from his glove the ball popped up but he caught it in the air and threw out the runner.
BTW, two years ago Cease had a no-hitter through 8 2/3 innings when Luis Arráez got a single. What make this interesting is Arraez is now Cease's teammate.
San Diego Padres ace Dylan Cease no-hit the Washington Nationals in a 3-0 victory on Thursday.
Cease struck out nine Nationals and walked three, throwing 114 total pitches. The feat came behind an early Padres offensive effort, as Ha-Seong Kim hit a three-run RBI single in the first inning. It was the Padres' fifth consecutive win, completing a sweep of the Nationals.
A few weeks before this season started, the 28-year-old Cease was traded to the Padres by the Chicago White Sox. Going into Thursday's matchup, Cease had a 9-8 record with a 3.59 ERA in 128 innings this season for a San Diego team that's 7.5 games back of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West and currently holds the third NL wild card.
Cease told MLB Network that he had to lobby manager Mike Shildt to stay in the game after the seventh inning, when he reached the 94-pitch count. He got the final six outs on 20 pitches. Those outs came via four groundouts, one strikeout and a flyout to end the game.
https://sports.yahoo.com/padres-dylan-c ... 21612.html