Red Sox can't knock out Blue Jays' Dylan Cease, fall 12 games under .500

Mac Cerullo, Boston Herald on Jun 16, 2026

Published in Baseball

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BOSTON — Normally if you were facing one of the game’s best pitchers and someone told you that you’d drive up their pitch count and get them out of the game early, you’d probably feel good about your chances.

Yet while the Red Sox made Dylan Cease work, they got nothing to show for it.

The Red Sox offense spun its wheels again on Tuesday, losing, 6-1, to the Toronto Blue Jays despite getting plenty of traffic against Cease. Boston went 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position and stranded eight men over the first five innings, and those missed opportunities loomed large as Toronto steadily pulled away.

Boston (29-41) now finds itself 12 games under .500 again, tying the club’s season low.

Making his second start since coming off the injured list with a mild hamstring strain, Cease found himself in early trouble but managed to escape a first-inning bases-loaded jam unscathed. Ceddanne Rafaela singled, Wilyer Abreu walked and Jarren Duran reached on a broken bat blooper that Cease couldn’t bring down behind the mound. Caleb Durbin stepped up with a chance to do some damage but flew out to shallow center to end the threat.

Even still, Cease needed 25 pitches to navigate the first and went on to throw 24 in the second, 19 in the third and 19 in the fourth. He stood at 87 pitches heading into the fifth inning but managed to give Toronto one more, finishing with five scoreless innings on four hits, four walks and seven strikeouts over 108 pitches.

It was a similar story for Payton Tolle, whose outing was also a complete tractor pull.

The Red Sox rookie needed 22 pitches to post a scoreless first, and after a fairly efficient second inning he threw another 24 in the third. A big chunk of those came in one 14-pitch at bat against Myles Straw, who he eventually got to fly out to right field.

That flyout still moved Andres Gimenez — who reached on a leadoff double after an initial out call at second base was overturned by replay — to third base, setting the table for George Springer to drive in the game’s first run with a sacrifice fly to right.

Toronto extended its lead to 3-0 in the fifth when Davis Schneider and Gimenez led off the inning with back-to-back solo home runs. It was the first time the Blue Jays have hit consecutive home runs in a game this season, and after finishing the inning Tolle wrapped up his outing with three runs allowed over five innings with four hits, two walks and six strikeouts.

Schneider came up big again his next time up to bat too. With Red Sox right-hander Tommy Kahnle pitching in the sixth, the Blue Jays got two men on when Kazuma Okamoto walked and Nathan Lukes singled to put men at the corners with one out. Schneider stepped up and launched a high fly ball to deep center, which bounced off the Green Monster and scored Okamoto for an RBI double to make it 4-0.

Considering the Red Sox still haven’t staged more than a two-run comeback in any win this year, it felt like that may as well have been the ballgame. But as they have done quite frequently over the past few weeks, the Red Sox made a late push.

With one out in the bottom of the eighth Duran hit a solo home run — his 12th of the season — to avert the shutout. Isiah Kiner-Falefa followed with a single and Marcelo Mayer walked to bring pinch hitter Mickey Gasper to the plate as the tying run.

That prompted the Blue Jays to summon closer Louis Varland, and the right-hander struck out Gasper to end the threat.

George Springer hit a two-run home run in the top of the ninth to effectively close the door, and Varland came back for the bottom of the frame to finish the job, locking down his 13th save of the season.

Springer’s homer was also the 300th of his MLB career.

The Red Sox will give it another shot Wednesday against future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer (1-4, 10.23 ERA), who like Cease is set to make his second start since coming off the IL. Boston will answer with rookie left-hander Jake Bennett (1-2, 5.28), and first pitch is set for 6:45 p.m.