Tigers fall in 10 innings, split series with White Sox

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on Jun 5, 2025

Published in Baseball

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CHICAGO — There is valor in the struggle. Casey Mize can take some pride in that because he labored mightily through his outing Thursday afternoon and still, when he left with two outs in the fifth, the Tigers were still in striking range. Which was no small accomplishment.

And they ended up striking in the top of the seventh, erasing a 2-0 deficit and extending the game into extra innings.

That's as far as valor took them, though. After Spencer Torkelson flew out to warning track in right field to end the top of the 10th inning, the White Sox walked it off in the bottom of the 10th, beating the Tigers, 3-2, to split the four-game series.

Tim Elko singled home the free runner off Beau Brieske to end it.

Blanked for six innings by White Sox righty Sean Burke, Wenceel Perez belted a solo homer off the top of the fence in right field with one out in the seventh.

With Zach McKinstry on first and two outs, manager AJ Hinch starting pushing buttons. Colt Keith pinch hit for Trey Sweeney and impressively fought his way to a nine-pitch walk, fouling off three, 3-2 pitches.

Hinch then sent Dillon Dingler to pinch hit for Jake Rogers and he dumped a ball inside the right-field line, scoring McKinstry with the tying run.

Keith ended up getting thrown out in a rundown between third and home. Perez was thrown out at third with no outs back in the second inning.

Because of all the pinch hitting, Keith ended up playing third base in the bottom of the seventh, the first time he's played there since 2023 at Triple-A Toledo. Hinch rearranged the defense again in the eighth, inserting Riley Greene in left and moving McKinstry to third base.

Had it not been for Mize’s compete level, though, the deficit could’ve been far deeper than two runs.

He couldn’t find the strike zone early. He walked two batters in each of the first two innings. He also gave up a single in the first inning and a double in the second. All that traffic cost him a bushel of extra pitches, but no runs.

After a rare first-inning mound visit from Chris Fetter, Mize got Joshua Palacios to pop to shallow left and Elko to ground out, stranding the bases loaded.

Fetter had to visit again in the second after Mize walked Mike Tauchman and Chase Meidroth with two outs to load the bases.

Mize didn’t buckle. He got Edgar Quero to fly out to center.

The zeros on the scoreboard were good but the pitch count was at 64. And with the Tigers’ bullpen taxed from covering 13 1/3 innings the previous two nights, there was significant urgency on Mize to get through a few more innings.

He obliged. With the help of some early swings by the White Sox, Mize got through a clean third inning on six pitches.

He got through the fourth, too, though the White Sox scratched across two runs. Josh Rojas and Michael A. Taylor led off the inning with singles and were bunted up to second and third by Vinny Capra.

Rojas scored on a sacrifice fly by Tauchman and Taylor on a two-strike emergency-hack single inside the bag at first by Meidroth.

Still, there was no action in the Tigers’ bullpen.

Mize got two more outs in the fifth and was at 93 pitches when Hinch finally came and took the ball from him.

It wasn’t pretty, but it was pretty important. Especially since the Tigers ended up tying the game and especially to save the bullpen with a weekend series starting Friday against the Cubs at Comerica Park.

Lefty Brant Hurter, ever solid, got six outs, including a pair of clutch double-play balls. The White Sox had runners at first and second with one out in the bottom of the seventh and he got Andrew Benintendi to bounce into a 4-6-3 double-play, turned brilliantly by Gleyber Torres, with a glove flip to Javier Báez.

Righty Brenan Hanifee then stranded the runner at third, striking out pinch-hitter Austin Slater.