Dylan Cease of the Boston White Sox will be playing against the Houston Astros’ ace Justin Verlander on Tuesday at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Both Cease and Verlander represent the top two runners for the AL Cy Young award, with Verlander currently being in the lead. For Cease, facing Verlander will be no different for him, although he remains excited about it.
“I’m sort of indifferent about it. I just handle it as best as I can,” Cease said. “Like you said it is a great challenge. I’m personally looking forward to it. It’s exciting.”
The 26-year-old Cease trails behind Verlander in wins, ERA, and strikeouts. This season, Cease has 12 wins while Verlander has 15. He has a 1.96 ERA with Verlander having 1.85. And finally, Cease has a 1.145 WHIP to Verlander’s 0.86 this year. Cease only has strikeouts as his advantage over Verlander, at 168 this season, while Verlander has 134.
Sox outfielder AJ Pollock expressed his confidence in Cease’s skills against Verlander. He also said that the match between the two would be quite a treat for fans.
“As a fan for sure, you got Cease for us who has been killing it and Verlander has been -doing it for so long,” Pollock said.
Meanwhile, Verlander said on Monday that he hasn’t actually seen Cease much, although he was also impressed with Cease’s performance.
“I know his stuff is tremendous,” Verlander said. “It seems like he’s put it all together this year.”
Admiring Verlander
Cease also expressed his admiration toward the veteran Verlander and the 39-year-old played a huge role in his childhood.
“Just the fact that especially back in the day, he would start out at 92 (mph) and finish at 101,” he said on Monday. “I remember watching him a lot as a kid and seeing that. The fact that I’m here now and he’s still doing it, it’s pretty rare.”
Verlander did more than just recover after missing last season while recovering from surgery. In 2020, he made one start before went on to the injured list three days later due to a right forearm strain. Cease found it impressive how reliable Verlander was to his team despite the hindrance.
“Missing the amount of time he did and to come back and essentially be a horse and a guy a team can rely on, it’s unbelievably impressive,” Cease said earlier this month.
Cease himself hasn’t considered matching Verlander’s resilience and said he would rather focus on what he thought needed to be done.
“It’s hard to fathom, but I guess he and (New York Mets starter Max) Scherzer are showing that if you take care of yourself, there’s no reason why your (velocity) or anything has to dip,” Cease said. “Guys like that are making it easier to picture for sure.”
Cease’s previous game
Cease has allowed one earned run or none in a major league record of 14 consecutive starts. He didn’t pitch in the three-game series in Houston.
The last time Cease saw the Astros in Game 3 of the AL Division Series was in October at Guaranteed Rate Field. While the Sox won that game 12-6, Cease only lasted 1 2/3 innings and allowed three runs on two hits with three walks and two strikeouts.
“I was disappointed,” Cease said. “I was very excited and I felt for the most part I was pretty calm. It didn’t go my way. I was disappointed, but at the end of the day I wasn’t going to let it be something that was going to keep me from getting back out there.”
The Sox are three games over .500 for the first time this season since they were 6-3. They are tied with the Minnesota Twins for the second and are three games behind the Cleveland Guardians.