DETROIT — The slider left Casey Mize’s hand and spun like a lazy bullet toward the plate. The ball moved outside, away from the center of the dish but not enough to avoid the bat of Connor Wong, who saw the pitch and let loose a wide-eyed swing.
Mize knew what his mistake had wrought. He put his hands above his head just as Wong connected with the 0-2, two-out offering. The ball jolted off the bat. Mize, hands still above his head, watched it land in the bullpen to put the Boston Red Sox ahead of the Detroit Tigers 4-0 in the sixth inning.
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“Wanted that one to be off the plate,” Mize said at his locker after the game. “Catches some plate, but it’s at the bottom rail of the zone. Not a horrible pitch, but in the context of 0-2, two outs, probably need to be better, for sure.”
Friday at Comerica Park, Mize was starting in the major leagues for the first time since June 30, hoping to avoid the sort of outing that has plagued his first year back after Tommy John surgery. But the story of Mize’s outing — lots of hard contact, glimpses of quality stuff but more lapses into trouble — has been a familiar tale.
Before this start, Mize had missed nearly two months with a left hamstring strain. The Tigers placed him on the 60-day injured list, something Mize was admittedly not a fan of — “I feel like I’ll be ready prior to that,” he said in July — and he went on to make four rehab starts in Triple A.
Perhaps there was something behind the elongated rehab assignment. Because as much as the Tigers wanted to make sure Mize was healthy and built up enough to make a lengthy start, they also wanted him to refine his stuff. In Triple A, Mize made a slight grip adjustment with his slider, the pitch he most needs to harness to be anything close to the pitcher who was once drafted first overall.
Casey Mize has a 2.63 ERA with 17 punchouts in 13 2/3 innings over four rehab starts this month.@USAFRecruiting #AimHigh pic.twitter.com/otfd6c2pGb
— Toledo Mud Hens (@MudHens) August 27, 2024
Mize entered the outing generating only an 18.9 percent whiff rate with his slider. An inability to miss bats in the strike zone has allowed hitters to sit on Mize’s fastball. They often eliminate his splitter unless it hangs over the plate, and then the pitch is subject to serious damage.
Mize on Friday generated nine swings-and-misses over his 85-pitch outing, including four with his fastball but only two with his slider. Again struggling to beat hitters in the zone, Boston batters launched eight balls off the bat at 100 mph or faster. Wong’s home run, with an exit velocity of 97.4 mph, was not among those. The Red Sox averaged a 92 mph exit velocity against Mize. The hard contact severely blemished his return to the majors.
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“I thought he was good at times and also misfired at times,” manager A.J. Hinch said.
Mize was able to generate ground-ball outs with the splitter and slider, and shaky command early turned to better efficiency late. After one inning, catcher Jake Rogers told him, “Keep attacking and trust your stuff.”
The fact Mize made it through six innings on 85 pitches was a plus.
“I’m sure he wanted to be better,” Rogers said. “He wants to be perfect. It wasn’t his best, but we’ll take that all day.”
Mize’s fastball velocity, however, was down. His four-seam averaged only 93.8 mph, well below his season average of 95.6 mph. For a pitcher who refined his fastball in spring training and entered the season hoping to lean more heavily on his four-seamer, the lack of velocity was hard to ignore.
“The velocity has been in line with what the rehab outings have been,” Mize said. “Definitely a little bit down from pre-injury. My body feels great. I think it’s just a little bit of my brain catching up, realizing, ‘Hey, your leg is OK.’ It’s gonna take a little bit of time to move the exact same way I was pre-injury.”
Despite the injuries and the starts and the stops, Mize has now started 56 games over four seasons in the big leagues and has a 4.31 career ERA. He often shows the makings of a quality MLB starter, but harnessing those peaks has proved difficult. Given those facts, the outings ahead could be important in determining how Mize fits in the context of the Tigers’ 2025 rotation.
The damage against Mize likely could have been worse given the way balls rocketed off Boston’s bats. The game’s defining image was still Mize, hands on head, watching as a mistake in an 0-2 count against his penultimate batter left the park. The Tigers went on to lose 7-5 in extra innings, their second straight loss after charging up the wild-card standings.
“That homer,” Mize said, “is definitely gonna keep me up tonight.”
(Photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
Cody Stavenhagen is a staff writer covering the Detroit Tigers and Major League Baseball for The Athletic. Previously, he covered Michigan football at The Athletic and Oklahoma football and basketball for the Tulsa World, where he was named APSE Beat Writer of the Year for his circulation group in 2016. He is a native of Amarillo, Texas. Follow Cody on Twitter @CodyStavenhagen
