His dad wanted him to get through six. Protecting a 3-1 lead, Casey Mize just wanted to get through the fifth. He didn't hit either target in the end, but Mize didn't miss in his highly-anticipated big-league debut.
With seven strikeouts and no walks over 4 1/3 innings, the top right-handed pitching prospect in baseball lived up to the hype. Here are three things we loved about Mize's debut.
From the first batter he faced, Mize looked like he belonged. He retired Tim Anderson on a fly ball -- Tim Anderson! Against the Tigers!! -- then struck out Yoan Moncada with a splitter and Eloy Jimenez with a slider. He whiffed Anderson and Jose Abreu with splitters in the third, and Edwin Encarnacion with a slider in the fourth. So Mize got the first five hitters in a deep White Sox lineup to go down swinging.
As Ron Gardenhire said, "That was fun to watch. For your first Major League outing against that hot team, that’s pretty doggone good. He made some pretty good hitters look bad over there."
Mize said he was poised for the challenge before his debut, and nothing we saw Wednesday suggested otherwise.
"I still firmly believe that I’m ready for this level. Like I said, I did a lot of things well tonight and I was very comfortable out there, very collected. I really felt like I belong, and the feedback I got from coaches and teammates I think would reflect that," he said. "There wasn’t really a moment where I felt like, I’m overmatched or I’m in the wrong place."
From the moment the Tigers drafted Mize first overall, we've heard about his splitter. Scouts across baseball say it's one of the best they've ever seen. Mize had it working Wednesday night. He threw it 19 times and induced six whiffs and four strikeouts. If there was one he'd like back, it was the hanger that Zack Collins hit for a leadoff double in the fifth, sparking Chicago's two-run rally.
Otherwise, Mize was pleased with the way his bread-and-butter pitch performed against big-league bats.
"I was very confident with the splitter, from the first inning on," he said. "I did spike a couple, but ended up getting a strikeout with it in the first, so I was really happy with the splitter tonight."
Mize was less satisfied with his cutter, which didn't bite like normal. But he showed the breadth of his five-pitch arsenal, and he fired 49 strikes -- including 12 whiffs -- on 73 pitches. Between his repertoire and his command, Mize is poised to smother opposing lineups for years to come.
"He’s a pretty polished pitcher, he handles himself really well. He’s got a really tough mindset that, ‘You’re not gonna get me. I’ll figure this thing out.’ He’s got an assortment of pitches that he can go to and command all of them. That tells you he’s got the weapons to pitch at this level, no doubt about it," Gardenhire said.
As Mize broke down his outing afterward, he dwelled on two things: the single he gave up to Moncada on a 3-2 pitch in the fifth, and the fact he couldn't deliver a shutdown inning after the Tigers took the lead. "It's eating me up," Mize said of the at-bat against Moncada.
All things considered, this was a terrific first impression. Mize became the first pitcher to strike out at least seven batters without a walk in his big-league debut since fellow first overall pick Stephen Strasburg in 2010.
Still, there was a look of frustration on his face as he cooled down in the dugout, and a measure of dissatisfaction in his voice as he reflected on things later.
"That’s one of the things that’s special about him: he’s not satisfied, ever," Gardenhire said. "If he gives up one run he’s not satisfied. That’s what’s made him such a good pitcher. We’re lucky, we’re going to get to see him for a while now."
Once he stepped back, Mize did acknowledge how much he enjoyed himself in a dream-come-true moment.