7-22-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
After another elite performance from Paul Skenes, the Pirates finally got back in the win column and look to keep that momentum going tonight with the next Tigers starter, Casey Mize.
The Pirates faced him last month in Detroit and, while they didn’t look completely overmatched, Mize posted a strong outing as he went 6 strong allowing 3 runs (2 earned) off 5 hits, no walks and 4 strikeouts – another outstanding outing in an All Star first half of the season.
That said, some cracks showed up in his final game before the break as he allowed 6 runs across 3 innings of work against the Seattle Mariners on July 12th and that is what we’re going to try using as a template for how to approach Mize in the game today.
As we discussed last time around, Mize features a fastball-heavy approach with his mid-90s 4-seam & sinker plus a high-80s splitter – and he leaned even more heavily on those in his last outing as they comprised 49 of his 68 total pitches thrown in the game.
He left the sinker up more often than not with 8 of the 12 thrown in the top/middle part of the zone while his 4-seam fastball wasn’t getting chases (30% oSwing%) and when hitters did chase, they still made contact at a 100% rate.
But typically his best pitch – the splitter – ended up being biggest problem for Mize as he struggled to locate the splitter (only 6 of 15 were in the strike zone) and when he did locate them, hitters were all over it.
The Pirates as a team, unsurprisingly, have struggled against the splitter this season. Bryan Reynolds has looked awful against the offering with a 51.3% whiff rate in 14 plate appearances where he has seen the pitch but Oneil Cruz will be one of the guys to watch as he has the most plate appearances against a splitter and has a .412 batting average with a .471 SLG% against the offering.
Similarly, Andrew McCutchen has had a great eye for the pitch with a .444 batting average and .610 wOBA against the offering across 10 plate appearances.
These two will need to be locked in and ready for that low-splitter while the others will need to target sinkers up in the zone. Work counts and attack mistakes in-zone as Mize still has a strong 6% walk rate.
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