Casey Mize's stellar start leads Tigers to shutout win over Guardians

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on Jul 5, 2025

Published in Baseball

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CLEVELAND — Casey Mize, quietly, steadily, has become a rock in the Detroit Tigers ever-shifting rotation.

With a bullpen stretched extra thin, Mize was tasked with not only controlling the pesky Cleveland Guardians offense, but to do it efficiently and eat a minimum of six innings.

Mission accomplished.

Mize pitched seven scoreless innings Saturday with no margin for error, helping the Tigers squeak out a 1-0 win against the Guardians at Progressive Field.

It was the Guardians' ninth straight loss.

Mize didn’t allow a hit until Jose Ramirez lined a single with two outs in the fourth. The only time he was real trouble was the sixth, when Brayan Rocchio led off with a double to right field and Mize didn’t flinch. He got Steven Kwan to fly to left and struck out Nolan Jones the first depth-slider he’d thrown him in three at-bats.

Manager AJ Hinch put up four fingers and issued an intentional walk to Ramirez.

Mize ended the inning getting Carlos Santana on a lazy fly to center.

Things got a little hairy in the seventh. Angel Martinez drove a ball to the wall in center that Matt Vierling ran down and next hitter Bo Naylor lined a ground-rule double to right.

No sweat. Mize got Johnathan Rodriguez to bounce out to shortstop.

Since coming back from a hamstring strain, Mize's four-seam fastball has been lively, not only in terms of velocity (94 to 97 mph) but also with the ride through the zone. He was spotting it at the top and bottom of the zone Saturday and mixing splitters, bullet sliders and depth sliders.

It was a master class in pitching to contact and missing barrels. He induced 11 groundouts.

He’s allowed two earned runs or less in six straight starts and lowered his ERA to 2.63.

Lefty Brant Hurter pitched a clean eighth inning. And after Will Vest threw 25 pitches to earn a four-out save Friday, Tommy Kahnle got the ball in the ninth and dispatched Ramirez and Santana before walking Daniel Schneemann on four pitches.

That set up a confrontation with left-handed hitting pinch-hitter Kyle Manzardo. Kahnle punched him out for his ninth save.

The offense, which produced 22 runs in three games in Washington, has been mostly muted in Cleveland.

They turned two solo homers into a 2-1 win Friday.

And Saturday, Spencer Torkelson’s 20 home run, another solo shot, was the only marker against soft-tossing lefty Logan Allen. In fact, Torkelson’s two hits, he also singled, were the only hits they mustered in the game.

All-Star second baseman Gleyber Torres left the game in the first inning. After he walked and extended his on-base streak to 18 games, he was out at second on a fielder’s choice ground-ball.

He slid short of the bag and shortstop Rocchio fell over top of him, driving his forearm and elbow into Torres’ neck.

He laid on the ground for a couple of minutes and was woozy as he walked off the field. The team’s initial diagnosis was a neck contusion.

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