KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Soon enough, rookie Casey Mize is going to have his workload restricted. He’s already made six more starts and more than doubled his innings pitched from a year ago.
But on Tuesday night, after the bullpen had eaten up 35 innings over the last five games, the Tigers needed him to go as deep as he could go. And Mize obliged.
He threw a career-high 103 pitches over 6.2 innings, putting the Tigers in position to beat the Royals 4-3 and securing their first series win in Kansas City since July of 2018.
The Royals have now lost 10 of their last 11 games.
It was the longest outing by a Tigers' starter since June 3, when Mize pitched seven complete innings against the White Sox in Chicago. He left with a runner at first and two outs in the seventh.
Veteran right-hander Wily Peralta, who last pitched in the big leagues in July of 2019 for the Royals and was summoned from Triple-A Toledo before the game, got four big outs, setting up lefty Gregory Soto, who worked a clean ninth inning for his sixth save.
He ended the game by winning a 12-pitch battle with Royals Michael A. Taylor. After five straight foul balls, Soto struck Taylor out with a wicked slider.
Mize was staked to a 3-0 lead early. Miguel Cabrera singled in a run in the first inning and then with a runner on in the third, Jonathan Schoop slammed a hanging, 0-2 slider from Royals starter Mike Minor and knocked it over the wall in right-center.
It was Schoop’s 11th homer of the season. He hit five in his first 207 plate appearances, six in his last 52.
The Tigers chased Minor and tacked on a fourth run in the sixth on a two-out RBI single by rookie Daz Cameron. Cabrera had started the two out rally with a double.
Mize’s only real trouble came in the bottom of the third. With one out, he gave up an infield single to Nicky Lopez and two-strike bloop single to Whit Merrifield. He seemed to lose his rhythm for a bit.
He threw a wild pitch, which move the runners up, Lopez scoring on a ground out. They he hit Salvador Perez, walked Jorge Soler and threw another wild pitch that plated Merrifield.
But Mize struck out Kelvin Gutierrez to end the third and settled back in. He gave up just one single until the seventh. With one out, Jarrod Dyson hooked a double into the corner in right.
With two outs, he jammed Lopez with a 2-2 fastball. Lopez was able to fist it into shallow left field to scored Dyson.
That was it for Mize, who delivered his ninth quality start. He was a very workman-like performance. He only struck out three. He got 10 swings and misses on 50 swings, and 18 called strikes. He was efficiently pitching to contact, keeping the innings brief and his pitch count down.
Oddly, home plate umpire John Tumpane made Mize change gloves after the first inning. Mize ended up borrowing reliever Kyle Funkhouser's glove and using it from the second inning on.
There was no reason immediately given, but it didn't seem to impact Mize's performance.
