Dylan Cease was chasing something special this afternoon in San Francisco, and John Schneider revealed exactly how far his ace wanted to push it.
After the sixth inning, Cease told his manager he could go up to 120 pitches. That's already a heavy workload for a start with real stakes attached.
Then the seventh inning ended, and Cease upped the number himself. He told Schneider he had 130 in him.
That's not a manager pushing a pitcher past his limit. That's a pitcher pulling his manager toward history.
Schneider didn't hesitate when it came to trusting his ace with the ball late into the afternoon.
"I'm a fan of baseball," Schneider said. "If I can let a player have that opportunity, I'm going to do it every single time."
Cease has been Toronto's most dominant arm all season, sitting at a 2.79 ERA with 137 strikeouts over 90 and one third innings.
Why Schneider's approach to pitch counts says a lot about him
A 1.18 WHIP across 16 starts backs up why Schneider was willing to let the leash out as the innings stacked up this afternoon.
Not every manager hands that kind of trust to a pitcher chasing a moment like this. Plenty would have pulled the plug well before 120 pitches even came up.
Schneider's comment about being a fan of baseball first says everything about how he views moments like these compared to a strict pitch count on a spreadsheet.
It's the same instinct that lets a jazz musician keep playing past the point where the sheet music ends, because the moment is bigger than the plan.
Cease earning that trust from his own manager, inning by inning, is its own story regardless of how the afternoon in San Francisco ultimately played out.
Toronto fans will be talking about this start for a while, and how Schneider handled it says as much about him as it does about Cease.
Was John Schneider right to let Dylan Cease push toward 130 pitches?
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