Kansas City, Mo. — Soon after the Tigers took high school right-hander Jackson Jobe with the third overall pick in the 2021 draft, he got a brisk reality check from manager AJ Hinch.
“I told him, ‘These guys have seen better stuff than you have,’” Hinch said, referring to big-league hitters. “’This is not the best stuff they’ve ever seen.’ There is some humility that comes with that, but there’s also the realization that this is the best level in the world and, generally speaking, 30 teams are pretty good at making it hard on you to succeed.”
It’s a reality every young pitcher confronts at some point. The margin for error is small. That wipeout slider or power heater that you overwhelmed hitters with through high school, college and the lower levels of the minor leagues isn’t going to automatically make big-league hitters swoon.
It needs to be properly sequenced and precisely and consistently located.
Brendan White, the Tigers’ 24-year-old rookie right-hander, is learning that the hard way right now. The electric, high-spin sweeper and tight, gyro slider are elite pitches, metrically, and yet big-league hitters are doing damage against both (.318 batting average and .590 slugging against his sweeper, .286 against his slider).
“Yeah, these guys aren’t overly impressed with 3,000 rpms,” Hinch said. “They’re not impressed anymore by 96 mph. That’s just standard bullpen velocity. That’s the toughest thing to learn here. You don’t run into any free outs.
“Eight-hole hitters in Triple-A don’t always make it. These guys up here all hit pretty high in the order in the minor leagues.”
It was the Royals’ nine-hole hitter that ruined White’s night in the eighth inning Tuesday. White got a break when right-fielder Kerry Carpenter hauled in a 380-foot drive by Drew Waters and threw out Edward Olivares who had tagged and tried to advance to second.
The Tigers were down 9-6 and needed a stop in a big way. With a runner at third and two outs, White got a tardy swing on a first-pitch sinker to right-handed hitting Dairon Blanco, who was hitting .188 coming into the game. He came back with a sweeper that he intended to locate away from him. Instead, he put it in the same spot as the sinker.
Bam, RBI double. The inning got more messy. White didn’t hold Blanco close and he stole third, which put him in position to score on an infield hit. Those two runs proved fatal after the Tigers rallied for four in the ninth and fell one run short in an 11-10 loss.
“It was a frustrating loss for me personally,” White said. “We scored those runs in the ninth. If I executed a little better, if I was just a little sharper. Obviously inches are everything in this game. Movement-wise, my (sweeper) was doing what I wanted it to do. It was moving well. I just put it in a bad spot. I put it arm side instead of glove side.
“It was a mistake that got hit.”
It’s these mistakes, though, that are the best teachers.
“To a left-handed hitter, that spot would’ve been awesome,” White said. “To a righty, down and in is going to get hit. I went sinker in and he was late on it. The slider was a mistake because of his timing. He was late on the sinker which means he’d be on time with something soft. I made a mistake going soft and I put it in a bad spot.
“The margin for error is very minuscule.”
The sample size is still small for White. He’s pitched 17 innings in 14 games. He’s got a 5.29 ERA with 19 strikeouts. Four of the 10 earned runs he’s allowed have come in the second game of back-to-back outings.
“The major leagues does the best job of exposing your weaknesses and putting you in a position to be challenged the most,” Hinch said. “They are going to fire a bunch of left-handed hitters at him. They’re going to spit on his best pitches. … Pitch metrics don’t get you outs. They just tell you what the pitch did.
“The hitters are the ones who get out or get hits. That’s the balancing act.”
It’s like an eye exam. You look through the lens in Triple-A and the letters seem perfectly clear. Looking through that same lens in the big leagues, the letters get a little fuzzy. Then the optometrist clicks to a stronger lens and, voila, the sharpness intensifies. Getting to that next level of focus is imperative.
“It’s not that I’m not focused when I’m out there,” White said. “But it’s more about really refining my focus. Just zone in tighter on what I’m looking at visually. Picking out my target and not trying to do too much. I think I’m trying to do a little too much trying to make it too good. That’s when the pitch stays up or goes to the wrong side of the plate.
“It’s about trusting and having faith.”
Who knows what’s going to happen with the Tigers’ roster in the next couple of weeks, but some movement and rearranging seems inevitable.
Not only because of the Aug. 1 trade deadline, but also because a couple of pitchers are getting close to returning off the injured list — specifically reliever Will Vest. That could make a bullpen spot, perhaps White’s, vulnerable.
But these six, seven, eight weeks, however long he stays up, will be the best training ground he’ll ever have. He’s shown that his stuff can play at the highest level. Now it’s a matter of learning how best to use it.
“I trust him a ton,” Hinch said. “I know he’s working. I know he’s trying to come up with the right combo of sweeper-slider-cutter and where to put his fastball. But there are no free innings up here.”
Around the horn
The Tigers were tempted to pitch lefty Tarik Skubal on normal rest Sunday but thought better of it. He will start on Monday in the makeup game against the Giants. Skubal is coming off flexor tendon surgery and the Tigers plan to give him extra days between starts for the rest of the season.
… No decision has been made yet on a starter for Sunday. If the Tigers decide to call up a pitcher from Toledo to make a spot start, both Alex Faedo and Joey Wentz would be rested and available. Faedo pitched five innings on Tuesday and struck out nine.
On deck: Padres
▶ Series: Three games at Comerica Park
▶ First pitch: Friday — 6:40 p.m.; Saturday — 6:10 p.m.; Sunday — 12:05 p.m.
▶ TV/radio: Friday — Apple TV-plus/97.1, 1270; Saturday — BSD/97.1, 1270; Sunday — Peacock/97.1, 1270
▶ Probables: Friday — RHP Seth Lugo (3-4, 3.78) vs. RHP Reese Olson (1-3, 3.96); Saturday — TBA vs. RHP Matt Manning (3-1, 3.38); Sunday — RHP Joe Musgrove (9-2, 3.16) vs. TBA
▶ Lugo, Padres: He’s coming off a rough start in Philadelphia where he gave up a couple of home runs and five runs total in 5⅓ innings. He’d allowed five runs total in his previous four starts combined, covering 22 innings. His money pitch is a high-spin (3,248 rpm) curveball, which he throws off a 93-94 mph four-seamer. This year, though, opponents are hitting .313 against it as opposed to .159 last year.
▶ Olson, Tigers: Freed of workload restrictions, Olson made a traditional start in Seattle and limited the Mariners to two runs over 5⅓ innings with five strikeouts. In the three outings where he’s pitched at least five innings, he’s allowed just three total runs with 19 strikeouts. He continues to bully hitters with his slider (4-for-51, 18 strikeouts, 43% whiff rate). His 32.6% chase rate ranks in the top 14 percentile in baseball.
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @cmccosky