Tigers’ Road Trip Reveals Surprising Vulnerabilities and Hidden Powers—What’s Next?

Having Tarik Skubal and Framber Valdez atop the rotation has looked every bit as good as expected. Casey Mize stuggled to spot his fastball and breaking stuff early on in his outing against the Diamondbacks on Tuesday, but he managed to survive with some heavy doses of his splitter and his command improved as he went along. He finished his six inning outing with one earned run allowed, racking up 15 whiffs and seven strikeouts on the night. The interaction between his two fastball types and the splitter has never looked better to me.

Verlander however, just had nothing for the Diamondbacks on Monday. He’s always conserved his energy in early spring and paced himself for a seven month season. The fact that his velocity was down to 93.2 mph from his 2025 average (93.9 mph) isn’t my concern, particularly as he was feeling for his mechanics the whole outing. His fastball command and ability to shape and spot his breaking stuff were wildly inconsistent. We’ll see better command as long as he’s feeling healthy, but for all of us already fearful of a failed last stand for the 43-year-old future Hall of Famer, a little reassurance in the form of some quality starts early on would help the cause over the rest of the month. His margin for error is reduced from even 2-3 years ago, and he’s relying on command of the full pitch mix these days.

Bullpen issues forever

Unfortunately, the reconstructed bullpen couldn’t give us even a week of peace before the Tigers’ unending struggles in this department reared their head again. The Tigers signed Kyle Finnegan after getting some good work from him in the second half last year. That looks like a good addition. The Tigers got the right-hander using his splitter a lot more than he did in Washington, with good effect. This spring his velocity has been up a touch and his slider has looked pretty good as well. After pitching in semi-obscurity for a team notorious for its poor pitching development, the Tigers may have caught Finnegan at the right time to get a peak season or two out of him.