Dylan Cease pitches better than he ever has

Dylan Cease

Here's my hot take for the day: Dylan Cease, not Eloy Jimenez, is the most productive player the White Sox acquired in the 2017 trade that sent Jose Quintana to the crosstown Cubs.

While Jimenez (torn hamstring) is injured for the third season in a row, Cease is the best starting pitcher the Sox have right now. The right-hander has made five starts this season, and the Sox are 4-1 in those games -- given that the team is 9-13, almost half their wins have come in Cease starts.

On Monday, Cease (3-1) had the best start of his career. He worked seven dominant innings against the Los Angeles Angels, allowing only one hit and two base runners in a 3-0 victory. He struck out 11 and walked nobody, including three strikeouts of the best player on the planet, Mike Trout.

Cease threw 93 pitches, 64 of them for strikes. And given that he had 11 strikeouts, you would think he would have gotten a ton of swings and misses, right? Not really. The Angels swung and missed 11 times. However, they took 20 called strikes and seemed totally off balance, as Cease had all four of his pitches working.

On fastballs, Cease got seven called strikes and seven whiffs. His slider produced eight called strikes and one whiff. His knuckle curve produced three called strikes and three whiffs. He also got two called strikes on his changeup.

All total, 31 of his 93 pitches produced either a called strike or a swing and miss. That's 33%, and at the major league level, anything over 30% qualifies as dominant. No Angels player reached third base against him. Cease's season ERA is down to 2.48.

There was more good news for the Sox on the pitching front Monday, as Liam Hendriks looked like his former dominant self for the first time all season.

Hendriks earned his fifth save in six opportunities, striking out Taylor Ward, Brandon Marsh and Trout in succession to close the game. He needed only 12 pitches to retire the side.

He threw fastball-fastball-slider to Ward, who is batting .390 and has been one of the league's best hitters so far. But in this at-bat, Ward was out on three pitches and basically had no chance.

Marsh struck out on four pitches -- fastball, fastball, slider, slider -- and he was lucky to check his swing on a 0-2 slider. On the 1-2 slider, he swing and missed.

Trout stayed in there for five pitches, but he also fanned on a Hendriks slider. In previous outings, Hendriks was a one-pitch pitcher; it was fastball or bust. When opposing batters have to worry about his slider, that's when he finds his dominant form. We saw it Monday; the Sox need more of that.