The Yankees take on the Tigers this week, as this crucial stretch of the schedule continues. They started off the gauntlet well, winning two of three in Houston before doing the same at home against the Blue Jays. Both series were taut, tense affairs, and we should be prepared for the same as a solid Detroit team comes to town.
The Tigers have cooled off since their brilliant start to the season; they entered July at 53-32, but have been one game below .500 since. Still, they come to this series with
the second-best record and the third-best run differential in the American League. A surprisingly deep and balanced lineup has posted the third-best wOBA in the AL, and while Detroit’s pitching staff can’t boast the same amount of depth, it does possess Tarik Skubal, the man with the strongest claim to the title of Best Pitcher on Earth.
This should be another fun series, one the Yankees must win to keep pace in the race for the AL East title. Now, let’s go through the probable pitching matchups:
Tuesday: Will Warren vs. Casey Mize (7:05 pm ET)
Warren was a bit hard-done-by his last time out, turning in a solid start of two runs over five-plus innings and exiting with a lead, only to see the bullpen fritter it away. It’s been that kind of season for Warren, with brilliance and frustration mixed together in equal parts. He’s leading with his four-seam/sinker combination that produces quality results despite middling velocity, running the sinker in on the hands of righties and filling the zone with his four-seamer against lefties. He also continues to struggle with his high-spin sweeper, the pitch that rakes across the zone yet gives up more hard contact than it seems it should. Indeed, the home run he gave up to Jeremy Pena last week came on a poorly placed sweeper.
On the other side will be Mize, the former number-one overall pick who appears to have settled in as a fine mid-rotation starter at the age of 28. He’s run a 3.87 ERA and a 3.98 FIP across 24 starts this season, good enough to get selected to his first All-Star team. Mize is a true five-pitch pitcher, running a four-seamer, splitter, slurve, slider, and sinker in that order of preference.
Though he’s had a solid season and has a fine arsenal, Mize has the look of a pitcher who throws the Yankees’ speed. The Yankees have some of the best numbers in the league against fastballs with similar speed and shape to Mize’s four-seamer, and though Mize does have his splitter that he’ll try to use to neutralize New York’s lefties, that pitch has gotten hit around a bit this year, to the tune of a .373 wOBA. A typical night from the Yankee lineup against Mize will give them good chances at a win.
Wednesday: Carlos Rodón vs. Jack Flaherty (7:05 pm ET)
Rodón has been the Yankees’ rotation stalwart the last month, giving up no more than two runs in each of his last six starts. His consistency has been a boon to the Yankee rotation, and what we’ve written about Rodón throughout the year remains true. He’s still succeeding on the strength of a more balanced arsenal, with his changeup, curveball, and sinker, all hardly ever thrown during his breakout years in 2021 and 2022 and his miserable 2023 debut with New York, now making up nearly a third of his pitch diet. He actually threw more changeups (30) than ever before his last time out, a gutty six-inning effort in Houston.
Speaking of guys that throw the Yankees’ speed, on the other side, Flaherty is another good matchup for this lineup. Though he did throw 5.1 shutout innings against New York in Detroit earlier this year, the last time he was in the Bronx the Yankees tattooed him for four runs in 1.1 innings in Game 5 of the World Series. Flaherty has also looked hittable in 2025, his adjusted ERA among the worst for a qualified starter. His recent form has been more than shaky, sandwiching one decent start (one run over 5.2 innings against the Royals) between two disastrous outings, one in which he gave up four runs in 4.1 to the White Sox, and another in which he yielded eight runs to Kansas City.
A brief glimpse at Flaherty’s profile suggests a pitcher that doesn’t quite have the juice to be a top-end starter in the bigs anymore. His fastball velocity sits at 92.8 mph, an inadequate mark in this day and age for a right-hander without other elite traits. He has a good knuckle-curve, but the rest of his arsenal and his command grade out as OK more than anything. He is, at age-29, seemingly a veteran number three or four. If the Yankees can spit on the curve enough to get a few fastballs to hit, they’ll do just fine.
Thursday: Cam Schlittler vs. TBD (7:05 pm ET)
At time of writing, we don’t have a confirmed starter for Detroit, but we should assume the worst at this point. Tarik Skubal would be on normal rest on Thursday night, and we’d do well not to get our hopes up that Detroit would push him back a day.
That said, a Skubal start would set up a tantalizing matchup, between the best in the world and a young and upcoming potential star. Though Schlittler finally wore one in an abbreviated start against the Blue Jays last Friday, he still has all the tools of a front-line starter and would make for an excellent foil opposite the reigning AL Cy Young.
And even in the worst start of his young career, Schlittler showed plenty of what makes him such an exciting prospect. He still blew his incredible fastball past the Blue Jays pretty consistently, generating six whiffs with the pitch in his 1.2 innings:
Of course, the Blue Jays also got some good swings off against Schlittler, chasing him by the second frame. It’ll be a good test to see if Schlittler can rebound from the first setback of his rookie campaign.
Schlittler will need to be at his best should Skubal stand against him. Skubal is the best pitcher in the league, with a 2.25 ERA to his name since the start of last season. He fills the zone with two power fastballs, a four-seamer and a sinker that both come in at 97-98 mph, and his changeup is one of the very best pitches in the game. Every time a hitter swings at Skubal’s changeup, he has roughly a coin-flip chance at making contact:
The goal with any Skubal start is to keep the contest close and low-scoring until you can chase him from the game, hopefully by the seventh inning. The Detroit bullpen is nothing special, ranking 15th in adjusted ERA and 24th in adjusted FIP as a unit. New York’s simplest route to victory (save a rare clunker from Skubal) is to survive and then thrive once they can get to the Tigers’ relievers.
