SEATTLE -- The Detroit offense did its part to make sure Jackson Jobe had an easy landing spot for his first career start. Maybe too good a job.
With Jobe -- the Tigers¡¯ top prospect -- set to make his first career start, Detroit did its best to delay his opening trot to the mound as long as possible, sending 14 batters to the plate and making Seattle go to the bullpen in a six-run first inning.
The frame took so long that Jobe went back up the tunnel to throw in the batting cage while his batters were adding to the lead, before the Mariners finally got the third out to send him to the hill for his warm-up pitches.
The season debut that followed had its highs and lows, and the Tigers made the most of their early lead in their 9-6 win over the Mariners.
¡°I felt all right,¡± Jobe said. ¡°Wish I had a couple of those pitches back, but I feel like I pitched well in certain situations. Some things I could have done better, but we got the win, so we¡¯ll keep rolling.¡±
Jobe ¨C MLB Pipeline¡¯s second-highest pitching prospect, behind only Roki Sasaki ¨C went four innings, allowing three runs on three hits and striking out four. He threw 79 pitches and walked four.
He finished with 10 whiffs on the day -- three with his four-seamer, three with his changeup and four with his cutter.
The upside for Jobe, who has been in the top three of the Tigers¡¯ prospect rankings since they took him with the third overall pick in the 2021 Draft, showed in an 11-pitch first inning in which he forced four swing-and-misses. The third came on a 99.1 mph fastball to Cal Raleigh -- Jobe reached 99 mph just three times in ¡®24 -- and the fourth came a pitch later on a wicked cutter at the hands for his first strikeout.
¡°Overall, his stuff was there,¡± said catcher Dillon Dingler, who went 3-for-5 with two RBIs and was one of seven Tigers to record a multi-hit game.
The rest of the outing had its bumps. The Mariners hit four balls that had exit velocities over 98 mph; two of them left the yard, and another was a 389-foot flyout that Riley Greene caught against the wall in center. The Mariners put up a run in all of his final three innings, and would have gotten more in the third if not for Javier Baez making a diving stop at third base and Spencer Torkelson laying out at first to snag a line drive.
¡°It looked like a little of a classic game of Middle or Miss, and the middle got hit,¡± manager A.J. Hinch said. ¡°He was able to control damage, which is encouraging. He was spotted a big lead, so [all] we want him to do is pound the strike zone. When he did, he got nicked away a little bit.¡±
Jobe¡¯s fourth inning was just about a microcosm of the whole night. Luke Raley ambushed a hanging changeup for a leadoff home run, but Jobe¡¯s next changeup was a picture-perfect offspeed that tumbled out of the zone and fooled Rowdy Tellez for a swinging strike three. After a walk and a popout, Jobe fell behind 3-0 to Victor Robles before battling back and eventually winning a nine-pitch battle to end his outing.
¡°That was huge,¡± Dingler said. ¡°Tough at-bat, he fouled off a lot of pitches. That¡¯s who he is. It was definitely good to see.¡±
It was far from a perfect start, by any stretch of the imagination. But it was one with plenty of promise, and the Tigers will be more than happy to get such an outing from their top prospect, in what wasn¡¯t technically his debut, but had some of the feeling of one with the promise of a long season ahead. And it doesn¡¯t hurt that it opened the way for their first win of 2025.
¡°I just told him he¡¯s really good,¡± Hinch said. ¡°It was a tough night to pitch, and I know he has a lot of expectations and he was coming out a little earlier than he wanted. ¡ I just wanted to give him a little bit of encouragement and let him know that he¡¯s going to have plenty of games where he¡¯s going deeper, to the middle or later part of the game, and I was proud of his effort.¡±