'He's got that edge': Mize miffed by 3 homers

CHICAGO -- For the second time in six days, Casey Mize kept the Tigers in a pitching duel against a veteran ace. For his first time in six weeks, he paid for home runs in a defeat. That second part weighed on him a lot more than the first.

The blinking lights at Guaranteed Rate Field on Thursday night couldn’t hide the look of frustration on Mize’s face as Yasmani Grandal sent the right-hander’s elevated sinker a Statcast-projected 457 feet to right-center field for an insurance run in the seventh inning. It was the third White Sox home run off Mize in what was still a quality start, but that wasn’t much consolation for the rookie. The Tigers still lost, 4-1.

• Box score

“I love the fact that he’s going to leave tonight pretty [ticked] off,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “I mean, he didn’t keep the ball in the ballpark the way he wanted to, and he feels like he should’ve thrown a shutout with stuff. I think he’s got that edge that matters when you’re on the mound.”

That edge was tempered when Mize talked with reporters after the game, but it wasn’t entirely switched off.

“Disappointed, for sure,” he said. “I think my stuff was there and I felt good physically. I just hate the outcome piece of it. This is where it’s kind of tough to balance, where you trust the process. My body was in a good position and my stuff was fine, but the outcome wasn’t good.”

It’s the same edge that had Mize frustrated three starts ago that he couldn’t get through the eighth inning at Seattle.

Aside from the three solo homers, Mize allowed just two other hits, both singles, and just three other balls in play over 99 mph in exit velocity. All three were ground balls -- two for outs, one for an error. Mize not only turned in his second straight walkless outing, extending his streak to 15 innings, but he reached just two three-ball counts, both to Yermín Mercedes.

It was a quality outing on a night when Mize didn’t have his best stuff, and it gave the Tigers a chance, much like he did against Yankees ace Gerrit Cole last weekend at Comerica Park.

“It’s development,” Hinch said. “He’s learning he’s a pretty good pitcher, and he’s challenging the strike zone against really good teams. I love that.”

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Mize is learning through both good and bad results. He had allowed just two home runs over his previous six starts but matched that total within his first seven hitters on a warm Thursday evening in Chicago. He threw a sharp splitter to Yoán Moncada, who chased it down and out of the strike zone to golf an opposite-field shot to left with two outs in the opening inning.

“I’m not sure I consider that truly a mistake,” Mize said. “He just had a good piece of hitting. I think his approach was trying to hit something soft that way, especially with two strikes, and he was able to drive it over the wall.”

By contrast, Jake Lamb and Grandal connected with fastballs left over the plate. Lamb pulled a four-seamer 412 feet to right field in the second inning, again after Mize had retired the first two batters. Grandal’s tape-measure drive completed the damage.

The few times that Mize had to work with runners on base, he thrived. Catcher Jake Rogers erased Tim Anderson’s leadoff single in the third inning by throwing him out on an ill-advised steal attempt before Mize sent fastballs past Adam Eaton and Moncada for back-to-back strikeouts. Willi Castro’s error on a Grandal ground ball extended the fourth inning, but Mize needed just four pitches to retire Lamb, dropping a slider on the corner for a called third strike.

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Mize threw surprisingly few splitters after Moncada’s homer, but his curveball proved to be a useful pitch. His slider continues to be nasty, drawing seven swings-and-misses and seven called strikes. But Mize’s four-seamer was feast-or-famine, inducing six swings-and-misses but also a 100.5 mph average exit velocity on three balls in play, according to Statcast.

“I didn’t abandon the splitter just because of [Moncada’s] swing,” Mize said. “I just wasn’t really pleased with the feel of it early. The slider was really quality, so we just favored that a ton and mixed in a couple curves.”

Lance Lynn’s six innings of one-run ball shut down a Tigers offense that had produced 10 runs two days ago in Milwaukee. Castro’s fifth-inning solo homer accounted for the lone run, and was one of five hits. Detroit’s best chance came with the bases loaded and two outs in the second inning, including back-to-back walks from Castro and Akil Baddoo, but Lynn struck out Rogers on three pitches to end the threat.