Padres notes: Dylan Cease expanding his repertoire, brings sweet treat to ballpark

Dylan Cease had never really tried to add another pitch.

“I just think maybe it’s kind of taken me a while to even get the other ones down where I’m throwing them for strikes,” he said. “That was always the main focus.”

He got pretty good at those pitches — primarily a four-seam fastball he throws 43 percent of the time and a slider he throws 41 percent of the time. (He and the Rangers’ Jon Gray are the only starting pitchers to rely on two pitches to that extent.)

Cease came into this season with a 3.83 ERA and with opponents batting just .228 against him in his career. Those numbers rank 48th and 30th in MLB since 2019.

He wanted to be better, which mostly involved his commanding his pitches more consistently.

He is doing so with the Padres. Entering Monday’s start against the Braves in the first game of a doubleheader, Cease is allowing the lowest batting average (.141) among qualifying National League starters, ranks second with a 0.78 WHIP, third in strikeouts per nine innings (11.1) and fifth in ERA (2.45). His 8.2 percent walk rate is by far the lowest of his career and is more than two percentage points lower than his career average.

Some around the game have suggested we are possibly witnessing Cease evolve into a true ace. If so, then the new pitches he is working on are a part of that evolution.

His relative dominance is largely due to his best two offerings. Opponents are batting .159 against his fastball and .120 against his slider. His slider has a 44 percent whiff rate.

But the 28-year-old right-hander is also in the nascent stages of developing a cutter and a sweeper on the fly.

Given the way the pitches break, the sweeper is almost exclusively for right-handed batters and the cutter for left-handed batters.

Having pitches that go both directions and complementary pitches that make a pitcher’s primary offering play up even more is one of Padres pitching coach Ruben Niebla’s core tenets. He has introduced at least one new pitch to almost every Padres pitcher in his two-plus seasons in the organization.

Cease joined the Padres in South Korea on March 16 and a couple days later was working on the new pitches.

“Just adding another weapon, plain and simple,” Cease said of the impetus behind incorporating the pitches. “Just add something else for them to think about.”

That is what the two offerings are at this point, mostly just something to think about. Cease has thrown them almost exclusively on the first or second pitch of at-bats and never when behind in the count.

“Still learning to throw (the pitches), and then if you get two strikes you don’t really want to ever get beat with maybe something that’s not your best pitch,” he said. “So it just makes more sense to get strikes with (the new pitches) early and then save your weapons.”

Sweet gesture

Cease, who grew up about a half-hour from Truist Park, arrived in the visitors clubhouse Sunday carrying two boxes filled with jars of honey.

Cease harvested the honey Saturday with his father, Jeff, who has two hives.

“I get to do the fun part,” Cease said of the harvesting.

The reviews were phenomenal.

“Best honey I’ve ever had,” Tyler Wade exclaimed.

“Really good,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said.

“That’s (expletive) delicious,” pitching coach Ruben Niebla said.

Easy change

Joe Musgrove played long toss on Sunday and will make “a handful” of throws off the mound again Monday in anticipation of his return from the injured list on Tuesday in Cincinnati.

That is two days later than his originally scheduled return. On the IL since May 5 with triceps tendinitis, Musgrove was set to start Sunday night before Saturday’s game was postponed by rain.

Pushing Musgrove back two days allows the Padres to slot in Randy Vásquez to start the second half of Monday’s doubleheader without making a transaction. Vásquez is likely to be optioned when Musgrove is activated.

“It’s not a huge change,” Musgrove said. “Cease has been throwing so well, I don’t want to disrupt his rhythm, want to keep him on his days. I can slot back in anywhere. It gives everyone else a little more time too.”

The altered schedule pushes the next starts for Michael King (Wednesday), Matt Waldron (Thursday) and Yu Darvish (Friday) back a day. It also sets up the Padres to go with their top three starters (Darvish, Cease and Musgrove) against the Yankees at Petco Park this coming weekend.