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Instant Reaction: Dylan Cease flirts with history as Blue Jays win series versus Giants
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Photo credit: © D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
Tristan Morgan
Jul 8, 2026, 21:00 EDTUpdated: Jul 8, 2026, 20:19 EDT
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After the first inning, I thought this instant reaction was going to be all about Kazuma Okamoto, but by the ninth, everybody was talking about Dylan Cease.
The Toronto Blue Jays cruised to a 10-0 win over the Giants on Wednesday afternoon to salvage the finale of this three-game set. Cease carried a no-hitter into the ninth inning at Oracle Park as Toronto improves to 44-49, still five games under .500 but just three back of the final American League Wild Card spot.
Okamoto blew the barn doors off this one in a hurry. With the bases loaded off Logan Webb in the first inning, he lifted a wall scraper that just cleared the right field wall for his first career grand slam, travelling a modest 328 feet. San Francisco challenged the call, but it stood, and the Blue Jays had a 5-0 lead in the first inning before most of the crowd had settled into their seats. Okamoto finished 2-for-5 with two runs and a career-high four RBI.
Daulton Varsho and the rest of the defence helped preserve the no-hit bid with a leaping grab in centre to rob a ball hit 396 feet, the kind of web gem that seems to find its way into every great no-hit bid. Ernie Clement also made a clean play up the middle to end the seventh, and Alejandro Kirk deserves plenty of credit too, calling the game with Cease the entire way in a battery that looked completely locked in from start to finish.
Then came the ninth. Helliot Ramos worked a 1-1 count before turning around a 97 mph fastball and lining a base hit into centre, breaking up the no-hit bid. He finished 1-for-4 with three strikeouts on the day, and flipped his bat on the way to first, down ten runs in the ninth inning. Whether that reaction was earned in that spot is up for the reader to decide, but it was the only real blemish on an otherwise dominant afternoon for Toronto.
Cease was pulled shortly after, getting a standing ovation from Giants and Blue Jays fans alike, finishing his day at 8+ innings, one hit, no runs, three walks and 11 strikeouts on a career-high 118 pitches. It was the longest outing of 2026 by any starter in the majors by pitch count, and the most he has ever thrown in a single start. Tyler Rogers came on to finish the game in four pitches.
This marked the second time in Cease’s career that he had lost a no-hit bid in the ninth inning. Back in September 2022 with the White Sox, he was one out away from no-hitting the Twins when Luis Arraez broke it up with two outs in the ninth. He did get his no-hitter eventually, throwing one for the Padres against Washington on July 25, 2024. 
Cease’s stuff was immense all game; he has a 36.4 percent whiff rate this season, and with all six pitches working, he’s nearly unhittable. With Wednesday’s effort, he improves to a 2.56 ERA, and his 11 strikeouts push his American League-leading total to 148, seventeen clear of Cam Schlittler, on the back of a stellar 36.7 percent strikeout rate on the season. It’s now his sixth start this season with 10 or more strikeouts and his tenth with triple-digit pitches. 
Dylan Cease today, and this entire season, has been magnificent. A player who was voted the worst free-agent signing of the offseason in a poll of MLB insiders has been showing them up with style. He’s making a strong case to start the All-Star Game for the American League, as picked by his own manager, John Schneider. Schlittler has had a tremendous season in his own right, but Cease made a loud statement of his own on Wednesday.
The Blue Jays weren’t done padding the lead following a massive five-run first, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. made sure his presence was known. It has been easy to lose track of just how good Guerrero Jr. truly is this season, and his ninth-inning frozen rope was a great reminder: a 419-foot blast off an 18-degree launch angle, no cheap shot, Guerrero Jr. got every bit of that one. It’s his fifth home run of the season, his first since June 18 at Fenway Park, and it came with two RBI in the blowout.
George Springer followed him one batter later with a home run of his own, 415 feet, enough said. It marked the Blue Jays’ second back-to-back shot of the year, after Davis Schneider and Andrés Giménez did it against the Red Sox on June 16.
The rest of the lineup kept pace as well. Varsho added two hits, including an RBI single, along with a walk and a stolen base while scoring twice, and Nathan Lukes also had a two-hit day of his own, coming around to score twice as well. Giménez chipped in an RBI single in the eighth. 
The Blue Jays close out the series with a win over the Giants at the most critical stretch of the season, with the Trade Deadline looming and a much-needed All-Star break finally in sight.
There are three games left before the break, and Toronto’s next stop is San Diego for a series against the Padres. Every one of those games will matter more than the last, a reality that isn’t going away for the rest of the season, and Toronto, now coming off this series win, has some good momentum.

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