The Detroit Tigers are currently the number one seed in the American League and would have a bye to the Division Series if the season ended today, but one question still looms: Who would be pitching in Game 2?
After Skubal, the Tigers Have Some Pitching Problems
Tarik Skubal has been elite all season and is currently competing for the American League Cy Young Award with Boston Red Sox southpaw Garrett Crochet , but the rest of the starting rotation has been inconsistent to say the least. All-Star Casey Mize has a 5.60 ERA and 1.43 WHIP in his last 10 starts. Newly acquired Chris Paddack has a 6.57 ERA and 1.42 WHIP in his five starts as a Tiger. Jack Flaherty has a 4.65 ERA and 1.38 WHIP in his last 1o starts, and newly acquired Charlie Morton has an 8.24 ERA and 1.69 WHIP in his last three starts.
Decisions will be difficult for manager A.J. Hinch because the other four starting pitchers have not made a great case for October. While all of them have shown flashes of excellence, outside of Paddack, we have also seen the worst of these pitchers. There have been too many more times recently where bullpen arms are getting “hot” by the fifth or early into the sixth inning.
Charlie Morton
Morton has the capabilities of giving the Tigers a quality start, but he is also prone to surrendering the long ball. In his six starts with the Tigers, Morton has surrendered five home runs and has given up five or more runs in three of those starts. The other three starts have been quality starts, but it is hard to justify his case for Game 2. Morton is a five-tool pitcher, but he really only has three effective pitches, with his cutter and changeup being mostly ineffective this season. The curveball has been his most effective pitch this season and has hitters whiffing on that pitch 38.5% of the time.
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Expectations were low for Morton coming into Detroit, so not many expected him to get the ball in Game 2 of the ALDS. Still, given the current circumstances of the rotation, A.J. Hinch will most likely have to evaluate him. Morton doesn’t possess the best strikeout abilities in MLB, but he does just enough to secure some outs.
Casey Mize
The second half of 2025 has felt like one to forget for Casey Mize , who has allowed three or more runs in five of his seven starts post-All-Star break. With offense being hard to come by in October, the Tigers need some more efficient starts from Mize down the stretch of the season to feel confident once the postseason rolls around.
Mize has never been a strikeout machine during his MLB career, and he’s average when it comes to ground ball rate, which typically doesn’t bode well for success in October. We know he is capable of a quality start, but it is a matter of whether he can consistently do that when the lights are brightest.
The main issue for Mize is finding a secondary pitch in his arsenal to complement his dominant fastball. Mize throws a split finger, slurve, slider, and sinker, but opponents are batting .250 or higher on all four of those pitches. This gives hitters the ability to avoid the fastball and wait for the offspeed. It is most likely too late for Mize to properly develop a secondary pitch, but only time will tell.
Jack Flaherty
The Los Angeles Dodgers wouldn’t have won the World Series last year without Jack Flaherty , but this year with the Tigers has been a roller coaster to say the least. We have seen the impressive starts from Flaherty this year, shutting down elite offenses, but we have also seen the worst of Flaherty this season. He is operating with a 4.74 ERA, which is a far cry from the 3.17 ERA he posted with the Tigers and Dodgers last season.
Flaherty’s last five starts have been abysmal. He has gone six or more innings once and has surrendered five or more runs in three of the five starts. He has a 6.53 ERA and 1.43 WHIP in those five starts, and has given up eight or more hits in three of his starts as well. Right now, it’s a legitimate question if he makes a start in the ALDS, given it’s a best-of-5 series, but there is still a month left in the season to see what Flaherty has. The main problem he has is the effectiveness of his slider, which has been getting hit around a lot more this season compared to last year. If he can clean that up in the final stretch of the season, maybe he can take the mound for Game 2 of a series.
The Last Word
A.J. Hinch will need to heavily assess what is available to him and figure out who is backing up Tarik Skubal in October. Given the experience of last season, it wouldn’t be shocking if that pitcher is Jack Flaherty, but he needs to earn it over these next couple of starts. The Tigers have World Series aspirations, but the pitching staff needs to step up if they want to make a deep playoff run. The bullpen has been one of the best in baseball over the last month, but it will continue to be taxed if the starting rotation doesn’t change quickly.
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