Dylan Cease dominates the Cubs' Double-A affiliate in near-perfect outing

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Dylan Cease must have had his good stuff on Wednesday.

The White Sox pitching prospect took a perfect game into the seventh inning for Double-A Birmingham. Oh, he happened to do it against the Cubs' Double-A affiliate, Tennessee.

Cease lost the perfect game and the no-hitter after 6 2/3 innings. He gave up a solid single on a 3-1 count in the seventh. He appeared to tire in his last inning, giving up a walk to the next batter before getting a strikeout to end the inning.

Cease racked up a dozen strikeouts and finished with just the one hit and one walk in seven innings of work. He finished with 101 pitches.

"I was just getting ahead and I was throwing every pitch for a strike I wanted to," Cease said to Jason Benetti on the NBC Sports Chicago broadcast of the White Sox-Angels game later in the night.

The 9-1 Barons win could be a teaser for what's to come for the White Sox. Zack Collins was Cease's catcher for the game and the 2016 first-round pick also homered.

Of Cease's 12 strikeouts, the first 11 were swinging. Cease struck out the last batter he faced looking. Of his 101 pitches, 20 of those were swinging strikes.

"Honestly, it was pretty evenly mixed," Cease said of his strikeout pitches. "A couple change ups, a couple fastballs, a couple sliders, a couple curveballs."

The 12 strikeouts match a career-high for Cease. He struck out 12 with the Winston-Salem Dash on May 1. In that game, he had no walks and only allowed two hits so this type of outing isn't exactly new to the 22-year-old.

Since getting promoted to Double-A for the second half of the minor league season, Cease has a 2.83 ERA with 42 strikeouts and 11 walks in 28 2/3 innings.

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