It wasn’t the home debut that Detroit Tigers pitcher Casey Mize was hoping for when he learned he’d be getting the start Monday night at Comerica Park against the Chicago Cubs.
Despite a strong 1-2-3 first inning, Mize would eventually surrender four home runs to the Cubs and get the gate in the 4th inning from manager Ron Gardenhire. The Cubs would eventually win the game by a 9-3 final score.
Mize himself would later describe his outing as “poor”, and lamented that he didn’t last longer in the game for his teammates.
“It was a pretty poor performance,” he said.
“I hate that I couldn’t go longer than 3.1 and put our team in a position to win. It’s just something to learn from and build upon this week in preparation for next time out.”
He’d thrown 76 pitches on the night, but began to really struggle in the 3rd and 4th innings.
“I threw a lot of stressful pitches tonight and it just seemed like the more I was in that situation, the more I was gripping the ball and really tensing up and just really trying to do a lot,” he said. “I think I needed to just settle down in those situations and be calm and actually do the opposite. In that situation, less is more. Really just try to focus on hitting spots and commanding and really just being calm out there. Tonight I don’t think I did a good job of that.”
However, despite last night’s setback, Mize and the Tigers can hang their hat on the fact that he’s shown he can pitch in the majors, having struck out nine opponent batters in just over 12 innings of total work.
“I think there’s definitely that aspect of it, but I think my approach is to aim as high as possible and allow other people to bring me down and insert that reality to me,” he said. “For me, I’m just trying to aim as high as I can and relentlessly attack greatness. That’s just the way I am. I’m going to continue to try to do that. I’ve got a good support system around me that keeps me pretty grounded.”
The 1st overall draft selection from 2018 knows that this was simply a bump in the road on the way to bigger and better things not only for him personally, but for the Tigers.
“I was just so excited to go out there and pitch because it’s our home park and I’m going to pitch here for years to come,” he said. “I know there will be better days on this field.”
– – Quotes via Evan Woodbery of MLive Link – –
