As the Toronto Blue Jays wait for pitching reinforcements to arrive, Dylan Cease returned to game action on Thursday in triple-A with the Buffalo Bisons.
Facing the Worcester Woo Sox, Cease covered four innings with 75 pitches (50 for strikes), allowing six hits, five earned runs and two homers while striking out six and walking one.
The six-foot-two right-hander averaged 97.0 m.p.h. and topped at 98.9 over 29 fastballs, mixing in 21 sliders, nine changeups, eight sinkers and eight knuckle curves. Cease generated 14 swings-and-misses on the night, seven of which came with his slider.
Cease needed just seven pitches to work through a scoreless first inning, but ended up running into trouble with two outs in the second and third.
The 30-year-old allowed back-to-back hits — an RBI single to Canadian Matt Lloyd and a two-run homer to Tsung-Che Cheng — before escaping the three-run frame with his second strikeout of the game.
Worcester struck again with a long ball in the third, as Braiden Ward led off the inning with a 384-foot homer to right field off a 2-1 Cease slider. Allan Castro later added to the Woo Sox lead, scoring Vinny Capra with a two-out, 111.4 m.p.h. double down the right-field line.
Cease bounced back to throw a scoreless fourth and end his outing.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider said Tuesday that Cease may need just the one rehab start before returning to the big-league rotation.
Toronto’s biggest off-season acquisition, Cease was off to a hot start for the Blue Jays, posting a 3.05 ERA with 92 strikeouts over his first 11 starts and 62 innings for his new team.
Cease hit the injured list with a left hamstring strain on May 25. He initially suffered the injury during a start against the Pittsburgh Pirates a day prior, when he appeared to shake out his legs after delivering a pitch to Spencer Horwitz.
After a mound visit from team trainers and manager John Schneider, Cease originally stayed in the game but was removed mid-at-bat against the next hitter, Brandon Lowe.