Casey Mize gets another crack at the Yankees, and the Tigers right-hander enters it with a simple assignment: clean up the mistakes that showed up in his last meeting with New York.
Detroit’s trip to the Bronx comes after a rough finish to a 10-game homestand, one that ended with the Tigers at 5-5 in Detroit. They now head into a six-game road swing at 35-49, sitting nine games behind in the AL Central and 6.5 games out of an AL Wild Card spot. With the trade deadline getting closer, the signs are beginning to point toward Detroit as a seller, and Mize could be part of that conversation as the series opener against the Yankees.
His most recent start against New York didn’t go the way he wanted. In 5.2 innings at Comerica Park, Mize gave up eight hits and four runs, including a home run to Jazz Chisholm. Even so, he’s been Detroit’s best starting pitcher when healthy in 2026, posting a 2.95 ERA with 56 strikeouts and a low walk total.
The biggest thing for Mize this time is keeping the ball in the yard. He’s already allowed two home runs in June, the first month this season in which he’s given up more than one. That was once a major issue for him early in his career, but experience has helped him settle that part of his game down.
The pitch mix from his June 23 outing against the Yankees tells part of the story. According to Baseball Savant, Mize threw 38 four-seam fastballs, 27 splitters and 21 sliders.
Some of those splitters and sliders stayed up, and the Yankees turned them into seven hard-hit balls, compared with 11 non-hard-hit balls. That’s not a disaster, but it’s also not the kind of margin he wants to live with again.
There’s also the ground-ball piece. In that last start against New York, Mize produced nine ground balls and nine fly balls, which is perfectly workable. But in 2026, he’s been more of a fly-ball pitcher anyway, so the challenge is less about changing who he is and more about getting the Yankees to roll over his splitter or fastball when the ballpark starts to play bigger in the summer heat.
The larger concern is his track record at Yankee Stadium. In his career there, Mize has a 5.56 ERA over 11.1 innings.
So this isn’t just about fixing one outing. It’s about making a better showing in a building that has given him trouble before.
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Even in Toledo, where the Tigers were hoping to find a usable lefty option, Pilkington never got the command piece to settle in. He had the kind of performance that forces a club to keep looking for sturdier relief help, and with one minor league option still available, there is at least some roster flexibility in play as Detroit continues sorting through its bullpen picture. [Read more 🡒]