DETROIT -- Tigers rookie right-hander Reese Olson got his first eight outs by strikeout Monday night. He ended up with a career-high 10 against the Yankees, but he was done after 4 1/3 innings because he needed 100 pitches (62 strikes) to get that far.

On Olson’s last pitch, Gleyber Torres drove a double to center to score Aaron Judge from first with the only run Olson allowed on three hits with four walks. The Yankees were 4-1 winners in the opener of a four-game series at Comerica Park as the Tigers lost their third consecutive game.

It was a tough loss for Olson, as Detroit got blanked by New York's Luis Severino for seven innings.

“He knows he can pitch against any lineup,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said of Olson, 24, who came from the Brewers in a July 2021 trade for left-handed reliever Daniel Norris. “Getting to two strikes and being able to put away hitters with names he recognizes against the Yankees, whom he hasn’t faced before, he can take great pride in how he handled tonight.”

When that comment from Hinch was repeated for Olson, he smiled and said, “That’s definitely a confidence boost for sure.”

Hinch said he wished Olson could have gone deeper into the game, but he noted that high strikeouts run up pitch counts. And Hinch was pleased with how well Olson worked with catcher Carson Kelly, followed the game plan “and didn’t get too fastball happy.”

Mixing up his pitches to keep hitters off-balance was key for Olson.

“His stuff was pretty good,” Hinch said. “His long innings ... his putaway pitches were obviously really good, but it took him a lot of pitches [matching his most this season] to get through his outing. … He came back and continued to miss bats, and so that’s encouraging.”

Olson got all 10 strikeouts on swings and misses.

“I don’t know if I’ve done that before,” Olson said. “It’s just kind of one of those nights when you have everything working, and I would have liked to have trusted it a little bit more in the [strike] zone and finished at-bats quicker. But it’s good to see, for sure.”

Olson struck out Aaron Judge, Everson Pereira and Kyle Higashioka twice each. His encounters with Judge -- the reigning American League MVP -- were particularly interesting because he got him to chase a slider on the first strikeout and a curveball on the second. Both broke low and just out of the strike zone.

Olson throws a curve only 4.5 percent of the time, according to FanGraphs. That bit of deception with a seldom-used pitch paid off.

“I threw a few more [curves] than I usually have,” said Olson. “With a righty-heavy lineup like tonight, I’m throwing a lot of sliders. The curve is 6 mph slower than the slider, and they’re looking for the harder one, and then it’s the slow one. That’s what I think happened with Judge. He was looking for the slider and would’ve been on it if it was the slider. But it was the curveball, and it was slower and bigger.”

Coming into the game, Olson had thrown sliders (32.8 percent), four-seam fastballs (30.3 percent), sinkers (19.6 percent) and changeups (12.7 percent) far more than curves.

Hinch said that Olson’s slider and fastball were good. He noted that Olson was “able to change the shape of his breaking balls” the second time he faced batters.

“That was effective,” said Hinch, “and he threw his changeup a little bit at the end. … He had them going backwards and teeter-tottering back and forth.”

All but two of Olson’s strikeouts came on pitches below the strike zone that the Yankees chased. However, Judge did not chase a low fastball on a full count in the fifth inning, drawing a walk with one out before Torres brought him home.

Detroit’s Doug Fister (2012 vs. the Royals) and Tyler Alexander (2020 vs. the Reds) share the AL record (along with Texas' Andrew Heaney from this past April) with nine consecutive strikeouts in a game. Olson's strikeouts didn’t come against consecutive batters, though, as there was one walk, one single and one batter who reached on an error during the stretch.

Before the game, Hinch said about Olson, “Strikes are going to be important for him because these guys feast in counts [when ahead].”

Olson got two strikeouts on 0-2 pitches and two more on 1-2. His other six came on 2-2 counts. So he followed the prescription for success, even if it didn’t lead to a win or a long outing.