If this was a goal for Casey Mize, it was never the destination. He got back on a big-league mound for the Tigers on Thursday and contributed to their fifth win in as many games this season. He was pleased with his stuff in his first start in nearly two years after a long road back from Tommy John, less so with his stats. Mostly, Mize felt "just pride and joy," he said, "even if I struggled at times and the box score wasn't great."
"Just super proud of the work I put in ... and super happy to be back and competing in the big leagues with my team," Mize told reporters after the Tigers' 6-3 win over the Mets in 11 innings, their third extra-innings win of the year.
Mize, who turns 27 next month, imagined helping the Tigers earlier than this. It's been six years since they drafted him first overall out of Auburn. He threw the ball well across 30 starts in 2021 and looked ready to leap into stardom the next year. Instead, he was felled by an elbow injury, shelved by surgery and then ushered into the shadows of rehab. On Thursday, he dusted off his arm in the spotlight. Mize will help the Tigers yet.
"After the 1st inning, some of those emotions started to subside a little bit and was just out there doing my thing," he said.
Mize walked the first batter he faced after jumping ahead 0-2. But he worked out of a jam with a mix of fastballs, sliders and his signature splitter, and then settled into something of a groove. It was interrupted in the 3rd by a two-out rally that started with a hit batter and a seeing-eye single. The pitch he'd like back was a hanging splitter that Francisco Alvarez ripped down the left-field line for a two-run double.
When Mize walked off the mound with one out in the 5th, it was 2-0 Mets. He had allowed five hits and left a runner on first who would come around to score. He would lament that he "could’ve ended some at-bats earlier with some fastballs" if he hadn't been "a little slider-happy" and that he "made some mistakes with two outs," namely hitting Francisco Lindor with an errant curveball in the 3rd.
"But I feel like if you look beyond the box score, I did some things today I’m really happy about and look forward to building upon," he said.
For one, Mize induced a game-high 10 swings and misses. That included five whiffs on his splitter and four more on his fastball, which had an average velo just below 97 mph. His arm didn't only look strong, it looked live, the ball humming out of his hand. He threw 87 total pitches, 56 for strikes.
"I did some things today that I really, really liked and I’m really happy to see," Mize said. "I think the split was a really good pitch for me today, I liked my fastball a lot, I think I should’ve thrown more than I did."
Mize thew 34 four-seamers to 29 sliders, a ratio that will more heavily favor the fastball as the season moves on. He also threw 21 splitters and mixed in three knuckle-curves. When he's commanding the ball, he still boasts the repertoire to be one of the top starting pitchers in the game. That's the destination he's aiming for, as good as it felt to hit a target on Thursday. And that's why Mize was hesitant to say there was ever a moment "when I took it all in."
"I don’t want to view anything as a finish line or this thing’s over with, because it’s not. This is going to be continual," he said. "This is a good checkpoint of a really long and tough process. I’m proud of the work that I've put in and that people have done for me. I owe a lot of people a lot of thanks for getting me back to where I am, but I think it would be a disservice to them if I just took it all in and just did it once or whatever."
The Tigers came back to win after Mize left the mound, scratching across runs in the 6th and the 7th before a game-tying homer by Riley Greene in the 8th. They seized the game with a three spot in the 11th, highlighted by a go-ahead opposite-field double by Colt Keith. These are the players who can spark the Tigers this season. So can their bullpen, which continued its dominance on Thursday: one hit, no runs and nine strikeouts over 6 2/3 innings. Their relievers have allowed one run through five games, holding hitters to a big-league best .093 average.
Last time Mize walked off a major league mound, the Tigers were 2-4 and headed toward 96 losses. We'll see where these Tigers wind up, but "we feel good about where we're at, we feel good about our team and we have for a few weeks," said Mize.
"Obviously there’s things we need to improve on and build upon, but we’ve had a really good start," he said. "This team deserves better than what I gave them today, but they picked me up. The bullpen has been awesome and the guys are just (delivering) timely hits and big-time at-bats when we need them. Things are clicking for us right now, but we’ve always gotta keep striving for more because what we’ve shown is good, but it’s not enough."
Mize, of course, would say the same for himself.