Casey Mize’s West Coast tenure may quickly be going south.
The former Detroit Tigers starter was traded to the San Diego Padres on Monday, Aug. 4, in a last-minute deal that cemented the Tigers as deadline-day sellers. The Tigers received praise for the deal, and one start into Mize’s time with the Padres, the deal may be looking even better than initially thought.
Mize pitched what he called “the worst start of my career,” against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday, Aug. 6, allowing nine hits and eight earned runs over 3⅓ innings in a 10-4 road loss. His ERA rose from 2.70 to 3.40 after the start.
“Not the first impression I wanted to make for my teammates and for the fans,” Mize told reporters after the game. “Pretty tough time to have the worst start of my career. I just put us in a really tough spot, didn’t give us a chance to win. So, frustrated and embarrassed by that.”
By game score, a metric that measures the quality of an individual start with higher scores indicating better performances, this was indeed Mize’s worst start of his career (8). His previous worst start by game score (15) came when he allowed six runs over 1⅔ innings against the Kansas City Royals on May 21, 2024. He had averaged a game score of 58 in 2026 before Wednesday’s start.
Mize isn’t the only former Tiger that didn’t have an ideal start with his new team. New Los Angeles Dodgers ace Tarik Skubal, who the Tigers traded to Los Angeles on Saturday, Aug. 1, took the loss in his first start with the Dodgers in a 5-1 defeat to the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on Tuesday, Aug. 4. Skubal pitched much better in his debut with his new team than Mize did with his, however, allowing two runs over six innings while striking out six batters on a windy night in Chicago.
To complete the cycle of former Tigers struggling with new teams, catcher Jake Rogers (in a very small sample) had just one hit over three games with the Baltimore Orioles before being traded to the Boston Red Sox in the deal that sent All-Star catcher Adley Rutschman to Boston. Though, in fairness, Rogers was likely not expected to perform at the level of Skubal and Mize, the back-to-back American League Cy Young Award winner and former No. 1 overall draft pick, respectively.
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You can reach Christian at cromo@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Casey Mize has miserable debut with Padres after Tigers trade
Reporting by Christian Romo, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Christian Romo, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
