ST. LOUIS — Detroit Tigers rookie Casey Mize, the expected ace of the pitching staff for years to come, is already gearing up for October 2022.
Ex-Tiger Justin Verlander, who becomes a free agent after this season, pitch six games (five starts) in October with AJ Hinch as his manager during the Houston Astros’ 2017 World Series championship run. When the Astros returned to the World Series in 2019, Verlander made six starts in the postseason.
The Tigers want Mize prepared for a similar workload.
“If I were to be shut down a week from now, and we’re in October next year, that’s a whole month and a half of me not knowing that that feels like,” Mize said Tuesday, after tossing five scoreless innings in a 4-3 win over the St. Louis Cardinals. “The goal here is to get through September so that jump is not so big when we are in those October games.”
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The 2021 season — Mize’s first full year in the big leagues — is a new experience from an innings standpoint. The 24-year-old right-hander boasts a 7-6 record, 3.55 ERA, 38 walks and 100 strikeouts over 129⅔ innings in 24 starts, making him a candidate for American League Rookie of the Year.
Mize’s previous lifetime-high: 114⅔ innings as a junior for Auburn in 2018, the same year Detroit drafted him No. 1 overall. He also threw 13⅔ innings between the Rookie Gulf Coast League and for High-A Lakeland before his season concluded. (Mize logged 109⅓ innings in 2019 and 28⅓ innings during his MLB debut campaign in 2020.)
“He has already entered a time where he’s in uncharted waters, just pitching this deep into the season and making this many starts in a row,” Hinch said before Tuesday’s game. “He’s got to grind and find ways to execute pitches effectively and efficiently and not look to the finish line too soon in the season.”
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Mize, though, doesn’t think about the physical or mental grind, only because he “doesn’t feel like there’s much of a grind” in his pursuit of pitching through September and completing the season without being shut down.
But to protect Mize from a possible arm injury in the future, the Tigers limited him to three or four innings throughout a four-start stretch in July. They also have taken advantage of spot starters, bullpen-only games and off days to give Mize six days rest between his recent starts in August.
It’s all part of a bigger plan: October 2022.
“I don’t want this season to end,” Mize said. “It’s not like I’m counting down the days or the starts. I feel like I can keep going for a long time. I feel good, and it’s not much of a grind. … I think the only (mental) challenge was the shortened starts. If there’s anything mentally going on, it’s just knowing I’m having six-seven days between starts and some of them might be shortened.
“That’s the only mental challenge, but it’s definitely not the length of the season. I’m enjoying myself and feel really good.”
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Along with Mize, the Tigers are preparing two other rookie starting pitchers, left-hander Tarik Skubal and righty Matt Manning, for October workloads in the future, possibly as soon as the 2022 season. The Tigers — 52-43 since May 8 and 21-16 since the All-Star break — believe they’re on the cusp of contending for the playoffs, with the necessary offseason additions.
That means Mize, Skubal and Manning need to be ready for what happens next.
“We haven’t even hit the stretch run where we’re going to expect you to be good, and then good again in October,” Hinch said. “I’ve watched guys have five or six starts in October, so that’s the standard that we’re going to live by mentally.”
Mize added: “I think that was a big part of why we designed the shortened starts and the length between starts, so we could feel what a full September feels like.”
After Wednesday’s start, Skubal has pitched 128 innings over 25 games (23 starts), recording a 4.01 ERA, 42 walks and 144 strikeouts. Making his MLB debut in 2020, the 24-year-old tossed 32 innings across eight games (seven starts) last year.
And for what it’s worth, Skubal — like Mize — isn’t running out of gas.
“Tarik and I were actually talking about that a couple days ago,” Mize said. “The dog days of August or September or whatever, neither of us feel that at all.”
Evan Petzold is a sports reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.