No-hitters aren't easy to pull off, even for pitchers like the Jays' Dylan Cease who've thrown them before

Dylan Cease came within three outs of a no-hitter this week, but fell just short of the feat that only one pitcher has ever accomplished for Toronto.

The 30-year-old right-hander struck out 11 batters and walked three during the first eight innings of Toronto's 10-0 steamrolling of the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday.

But a single off the bat of Heliot Ramos in the top of the ninth ended Cease's no-hit bid and his outing, as Blue Jays manager John Schneider turned to his bullpen to wrap things up.

"That's baseball," a philosophical Cease tolds Sportsnet's Hazel Mae after the game.

Cease, who joined the Blue Jays this year, has already pitched a no-hitter in 2024, and narrowly missed another in 2022.

His dominant performance on Wednesday gave fans a glimpse of how hard it is to quiet the bats of a major-league ballclub for an entire game, and served as a reminder of some of the no-hit bids Toronto has flirted with in the past.

"A lot of things have to fall into place," said Larry Millson, a veteran sportswriter who has covered the Blue Jays for decades, including the game in which the Toronto franchise saw its one and only no-hitter happen.

According to MLB.com, there have been 327 no-hitters from 1876 up to the most recent one in May. That was a combined effort by multiple pitchers for the Houston Astros, but there are also occasions where individual pitchers throw no-hit games, as was almost the case for Cease on Wednesday.

If he'd managed to pull it off, it would have put him in rare company in Toronto, where only one pitcher has ever done it before.

The only Blue Jays no-hitter to date was thrown by Dave Stieb on Sept. 2, 1990 — five years before Cease was even born.

Stieb struck out nine and walked four batters