How interpreter Ippei Mizuhara became players’ lifeline
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Tim Keown, ESPN Senior Writer
MICHAEL CROTTA DIDN’T know anybody or much of anything when he arrived to play professional baseball in Sapporo, Japan, in February 2014. His lack of knowledge of a new culture, and a little nervousness at the prospect of assimilating into it, caused him to show up about three weeks before spring training began for his new team, the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters.
Almost immediately, he had help. One of the team’s two interpreters showed up every day from the time Crotta arrived until spring training started. He showed Crotta how to get a subway card and taught him the logistics of getting around the city. He took him to the grocery store more than once that first week, telling him what he liked to eat, what he liked to cook, how to navigate the aisles and shelves. They would go up and down the rows, and the interpreter would patiently explain how the store was laid out and how the Japanese words on the labels translated to English. Crotta remembers hearing, “This is what this says,” so many times it almost became an earworm.
Crotta and the interpreter were both 29, so there was some commonality. Crotta showed up near the end of the weeklong Sapporo Snow Festival, and his new friend took him there so he could experience the biggest cultural event on the island of Hokkaido. He taught Crotta the ins and outs of ordering at a Japanese restaurant, knowing, as Crotta says, “It’s extremely humbling when you can’t do it yourself.”
The interpreter was Ippei Mizuhara, now under federal indictment and charged with bank fraud for allegedly stealing more than $16 million of Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani‘s money to pay off gambling debts incurred through Southern California sports bookmaker Mathew Bowyer. Born in Japan and raised in Southern California from the time he was 7, the son of Orange County restaurateurs, Mizuhara’s first job in professional sports was as an interpreter for the Fighters, with which he spent five seasons (2013-17) helping the team’s American players. His tenure began Ohtani’s rookie year, and in 2018, when Ohtani left the Fighters for Major League Baseball and the Los Angeles Angels, Mizuhara joined him. He spent the past six years as Ohtani’s interpreter and personal assistant before being fired in March when the scandal over his admitted gambling addiction came to light.
With the interpreter gig in Japan, Mizuhara seemed to have found his path in life. He graduated from Diamond Bar High School, in eastern Los Angeles County, in 2003 and worked a variety of jobs before finding a way to combine his language skills and love of sports to set out on a career. (Along the way, he falsely claimed to have attended and graduated from University of California, Riverside; university spokesperson Sandra Martinez says nobody by that name was ever enrolled.) In high school, he appears to have left a minimal footprint. He was on the soccer team — the third-string goalkeeper who almost never played but enjoyed the game and always showed up for practice. “I don’t even remember if he ever got into a game,” says Kemp Wells, who was an assistant coach at the time. Mizuhara was unmemorable as a student, too: quiet, self-sufficient, definitely not someone his teachers or classmates expected to see splashed across every news platform in the country.
“When it comes to students, I tend to remember the really good ones and the really bad ones,” says Wells, who taught Mizuhara senior-year English. “And he was neither. Just kept his head down and did his work.”
(The school recently scrubbed Mizuhara from the “Distinguished Alumni” section of its website, and sources say there was a “soft blackout” at the school when it came to reporters’ inquiries about him.)
Three of the American players who worked closely with Mizuhara and consider him to be a friend — Crotta, Mitch Lively and Red Sox reliever Chris Martin — were reluctant to opine on how Mizuhara ended up in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles last Friday, his legs shackled. The 6-foot-8 Martin, towering over everyone in the visitors clubhouse in the Oakland Coliseum, shakes his head and says, “I obviously don’t have a lot to say, because I just don’t know. My wife and I are looking at Ippei’s face all over the news, looking at each other and saying, ‘This is wild.’ We’ve been in shock. The theft thing is what throws me off. Obviously things change and people change, but I can’t get my head around that part.”
OHTANI AND MIZUHARA were nearly inseparable for Ohtani’s first six years in the major leagues. In fact, it often seemed the most public aspect of Mizuhara’s job — translating from English to Japanese and vice versa during media interviews — was the least important. As an employee of both Ohtani’s team and Ohtani himself, Mizuhara wore many hats while notably wearing none, choosing to let his moptop flow untamed. He was a training partner, a butler and a confidant. He often drove Ohtani to the ballpark and took care of mundane off the field business: groceries, monthly bills, scheduling. He oversaw Ohtani’s pregame routine before starts on the mound and provided him with information on opposing pitchers from the bench or the on-deck circle. And, as we now know from federal investigators, he had access to at least one of Ohtani’s bank accounts, which he allegedly used to siphon money to pay off a staggering amount of gambling debt: 19,000 bets in roughly 26 months beginning in November 2021, more than $142 million wins and almost $183 million in losses.
The federal affidavit against Mizuhara depicts a relationship predicated on complete trust, a trust Mizuhara spun to his advantage. He is accused of not only funneling money from one of Ohtani’s bank accounts to pay off his losses, but directing the money from any winnings back to his own. He allegedly impersonated Ohtani in phone calls to the bank in order to get massive wire transfers approved without Ohtani’s knowledge. He is also accused of hiding any activity from that account, not only from Ohtani but his agent and business manager, as well. Somehow, perhaps because Ohtani’s representatives with powerhouse agency CAA were just as dependent on Mizuhara as Ohtani — agent Nez Balelo apparently employed no other Japanese-speaking interpreter — they apparently accepted his version as the truth.
Martin was interviewed on the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast March 13, a week before news of the gambling scandal broke. The tone was lighthearted and breezy. Asked about his time in Japan with Mizuhara, he said, “All of my trust was in Ippei, and that was a lot of trust.”
Mizuhara’s time in Sapporo, where he worked as one of two team-employed interpreters for the four American players each NPB team is allowed to employ, mirrored his work with Ohtani in one important aspect: He took on a variety of duties that spread far beyond the narrow confines implied by his job title. American players arriving in Japan for the first time were often insulated and vulnerable. The broad range of services required from an interpreter shows how a person entrusted with the responsibility can facilitate — or infiltrate — the life of a player dependent on his language skills.
“He was my lifeline over there,” Lively says. “The translators are literally an extension of you. You don’t have a means of communicating, no means of filling out paperwork. You can’t live without them, and I looked at them as my friends, not team employees.”
Mizuhara helped players arrange for work visas before arriving in Japan. He took Lively to a local bank and helped him set up an account where his paycheck could be deposited. He accompanied Martin and his wife, Danielle, to ultrasound appointments after she got pregnant during the season. “Interpreters know a lot about you,” Martin says. “He was right there with us in the ultrasounds, making sure we knew everything that was going on. You don’t think anything of it.”
At the ballpark, American players relied on an interpreter to translate every conversation with a teammate or the manager or one of the coaches. Any type of instruction — bunt coverages, scouting reports, even things as simple as stretching drills — was funneled through an interpreter.
“I would have been completely lost without Ippei,” Crotta says. “Not just in baseball, but day-to-day life.”
Crotta spent the first season in Sapporo by himself while his then-wife and young son remained at the family’s home in Florida. But after the Fighters’ spring training in Okinawa ended the following March, Crotta’s wife, pregnant with the couple’s second child, traveled to Japan with their son to spend the season as a family. Mizuhara, concerned they might have difficulty navigating the plane change in the massive Narita airport, took the extraordinary step of flying from Sapporo to Tokyo to meet up with them and accompany them on the final leg of their journey.
“It wasn’t something I expected at all,” says Crotta, who assumes the team paid for Mizuhara’s time and flights. “That wasn’t really part of his job, but that’s the kind of guy he was.”
Crotta, who pitched in 15 games for the Pirates in 2011 and spent the next seven years trying unsuccessfully to get back to the big leagues, has more stories, and he seems eager to tell them, perhaps as a means of working through what he’s learned over the past few weeks. There was the time Mizuhara found out Crotta’s son was infatuated with animals and arranged for tickets and transportation for the family to go to the Sapporo Maruyama Zoo on a Fighters’ off day, and the time Mizuhara helped Crotta and his wife find a kindergarten school for their son, and the time the boy fell ill and Mizuhara called to arrange a doctor’s appointment and then went with them to make sure they understood everything the doctor was saying.
“There are so many things you take for granted until you find yourself in a situation where you can’t communicate with 98 percent of the population,” Crotta says. “There were a lot of things I wouldn’t have experienced without him. He definitely went out of his way to make sure I experienced as much of the culture as I wanted to.”
Due in no small part to Mizuhara’s influence, Crotta, now a commercial insurance salesman in the Tampa area, says he enjoyed his time in Japan so much that he would have stayed there and gotten a job in baseball if he could have become more conversant in the language. “I loved it there,” he says. “And there are a lot of things I wouldn’t have experienced without Ippei.”
Lively retired last year after 16 seasons of professional baseball, including 11 regular- or winter-league seasons in Latin America and Asia. He remained in touch with Mizuhara after leaving Japan; they continued to play in the same fantasy football league until a few years ago, and Lively texted him regularly through Ohtani’s move to the Dodgers.
Lively is speaking from his home in Susanville, California, the day Mizuhara was charged and the day before he appeared in shackles before the court and ordered to undergo gambling addiction treatment. Like the others, Lively is trying to square the person he knew with the person he’s seeing now. His cadence and tone make it seem likely that he’s shaking his head on the other end of the line. He hasn’t reached out to Mizuhara since the story broke — “I figure he’s busy dealing with death threats,” he says dryly — but he’s spent the past few weeks thinking and rethinking the minute details of his time with him. He never in a million years expected to have to rethink any of this, but: Were there signs? Did he, and the other Americans, miss something?
“I can’t give you a yes or a no or a maybe, and I don’t want to try,” Lively says. “I just know I never heard him talk about gambling, not once. I don’t know if that means anything, though. That’s the thing about addictions, right? You don’t talk about them. You hide them.”
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Ryan S. Clark
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Kristen Shilton
Just when it looked as if the Carolina Hurricanes were going to force a Game 6 after scoring a pair of first-period goals, the Florida Panthers scored the three in the second. And when it looked as if the Hurricanes were going to at least force overtime with a third-period goal from Seth Jarvis? That’s when the defending Stanley Cup champions put an end to the discussion, with captain Aleksander Barkov using his strength to fend off Dmitry Orlov to set up Carter Verhaeghe for the series-clinching goal in their 5-3 win Wednesday in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals.
Returning to the Stanley Cup Final to defend their crown is only the start for the Panthers. This is now the 11th time in the past 12 years in which a Sun Belt team has played in the Stanley Cup Final, a distinction that began in 2014 with the Los Angeles Kings and was interrupted in 2019 when the Boston Bruins faced the St. Louis Blues.
Also, a team from Florida (the Tampa Bay Lightning is the other) has won the East in six straight seasons, which is also the same length of the current streak of Sun Belt teams to reach the Cup Final. Furthermore, the Panthers are also the third South Florida professional team to reach the title game or title series in their respective sport for three straight years, joining the Miami Dolphins from 1971 to 1973 and the Miami Heat from 2010 to 2014.
Although they avoided being swept, the Hurricanes were eliminated in the conference finals for the second time in the past three seasons. They’ll now enter an offseason in which they’ll face questions about their roster, and what must be done to get beyond the penultimate round of the playoffs.
Ryan S. Clark and Kristen Shilton look back at what happened in Game 5, along with what lies ahead for each franchise.
Florida was well-positioned for a victory Wednesday. The Panthers had their injured skaters back — Sam Reinhart, Niko Mikkola and A.J. Greer had all been impact players in some form — and they should have added a spark. But it didn’t look as if the Panthers were benefiting from their return early, as the team looked slow out of the gate. Gustav Forsling‘s turnover sent Sebastian Aho on a breakaway that he turned into a 1-0 lead for Carolina.
Florida also couldn’t capitalize on its power plays, which was not great — especially considering Aho’s second goal of the period gave the Hurricanes a 2-0 lead through 20 minutes.
But then the Panthers did what they do best: pounce. Matthew Tkachuk‘s power-play goal cut the deficit in half and Evan Rodrigues had the score tied 30 seconds later. Then it was Anton Lundell giving Florida the lead. That’s just how the Panthers roll — deep. Rodrigues was the Panthers’ 19th different goal scorer in the postseason.
Even though Sergei Bobrovsky looked shakier than usual in the first period, he responded with a strong finish through the final 40 minutes. And Florida’s penalty kill stepped up to stifle the Hurricanes’ power play (which was 0-for-4). The Panthers tightened up and stayed that way through the third period to deny Carolina a chance to force a Game 6.
Florida was not flawless — giving up a goal to Jarvis midway through the third was a bad look — but Verhaeghe scored the winner (off a brilliant assist from Barkov) to make Florida’s just-enough effort sufficient to snuff out the Hurricanes’ flame. And Sam Bennett‘s empty-netter ensured it was three straight Eastern Conference titles for the Panthers. — Shilton
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Verhaeghe puts Panthers back in front
Carter Verhaeghe fires home a big-time goal to give the Panthers a lead late in the third period.
Everything the Canes did in the first period of Game 5 was an extension of how they operated in Game 4. They had a plan, and it was a course of action that saw them take advantage of mistakes such as the ones that led to Aho scoring the goals that staked Carolina to its 2-0 lead. There was something else too, specifically in the way the Hurricanes defended themselves in the midst of a scrum with about five minutes left that showed a fight that wasn’t always seen in the series.
A two-goal lead after one period for a team that was 6-0 this postseason when they scored first was a good sign. The Hurricanes’ defensive identity carried over from their season-saving Game 4 performance. It was enough to suggest for at least an intermission that a Game 6 could be in play. Then came the quick back-to-back goals from Tkachuk and Rodrigues in the second period before Lundell scored a little more than four minutes later to put Carolina behind.
Those goals — coupled with the fact the Panthers limited the Hurricanes to only two shots on goal in the first 10 minutes of the final period — initially made it seem as if the series was over. That’s until Jarvis scored a tying goal and reignited some pushback from the Canes. Or rather, it did until Barkov showed what makes him one of the game’s premier players by holding off Orlov and creating the space to set up Verhaeghe for the winning goal. — Clark
Big questions
Can the Panthers use rest as a refresher?
Florida hasn’t had consecutive days off at this point since early in their second-round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs. And the Panthers are ailing to some degree. All those injured skaters clearly aren’t fully healthy; Eetu Luostarinen left Wednesday’s game after a cross-check from William Carrier, and you know plenty of guys who have been in the lineup every night are craving some downtime.
The Panthers have an opportunity to breathe and reboot after a long string of games, and that could be invaluable in how they show up to the Cup Final. They could know their next opponent as soon as Thursday, but it might also be a few more days before the Western Conference finals is settled.
Florida will have a slight edge either way in the rest department, and capitalizing on it could be a game-changer. The Panthers remember the toll it takes on the body to travel long distances (like from Fort Lauderdale to Edmonton?) in a Final. It’s critical to take advantage of, well, every advantage. Even if it means being Dallas Stars fans for a spell — and hoping the two potential foes can tire each other out for another few games. — Shilton
How aggressive are the Canes going to get this summer, knowing next year might be their strongest chance to strike?
Possessing more than $28 million in cap space, per PuckPedia, presents the idea that the Hurricanes could be a major player in free agency. It’s a level of flexibility that championship contenders covet because it’s so hard to attain once they have several members of their core under long-term contracts.
That’s a problem the Hurricanes don’t have — at least not yet.
They have seven players signed to deals longer than three seasons. It’s a group that includes core members such as Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Jaccob Slavin, Andrei Svechnikov, Aho and Jarvis. But there are considerations to make given that Jackson Blake, Scott Morrow, Alexander Nikishin and Logan Stankoven are all going to be pending restricted free agents after the 2025-26 season, who will then be in need of new deals.
Though there’s a need for the Hurricanes to try to win now, this is also a franchise that has made a point of building large portions of its roster through the draft. Now, the Canes must balance an approach that has allowed them to be a championship contender with one that sees them take the next step, and that will dictate how their front office handles this offseason. — Clark
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David Schoenfield
The Detroit Tigers were going nowhere on Aug. 10, 2024, headed for another losing season, which would have been their eighth in a row, and their 10th consecutive non-playoff season. They were 55-63, 10 games out of the third wild-card spot and behind five other teams in the wild-card standings. They had dealt starting pitcher Jack Flaherty at the July trade deadline, and their lineup in a 3-1 loss to the San Francisco Giants that day featured Akil Baddoo batting leadoff (hitting .125), Gio Urshela at cleanup (.605 OPS) and Bligh Madris playing first base and batting fifth (career OPS in the majors of .560). The bottom four hitters all finished the game hitting under .200.
FanGraphs pegged Detroit’s playoff odds at 0.2%, which seemed generous.
The Tigers won the next day, beating the Giants 5-4. Maybe the biggest win of their season came on Aug. 15, though, when Javier Baez hit a two-out, two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning off tough Seattle Mariners closer Andres Munoz to lift the Tigers to a 2-1 victory. The Tigers would go on to an improbable 31-13 run to finish the season at 86-76 and capture a wild card — one win more than Seattle — before eventually being eliminated in the American League Division Series.
The winning has carried over into 2025 as the Tigers are 36-20, the best record in the American League. Tuesday was their 100th game since the transformation began Aug. 11, and they have the best record in the majors since that date:
Detroit Tigers: 67-33, .670
Los Angeles Dodgers: 64-36, .640
New York Mets: 62-38, .620
Philadelphia Phillies: 61-38, .616
What has led to this dominance? Let’s break down some of the numbers behind Detroit’s astounding turnaround over the past 100 games.
1. Tarik Skubal is 10-2 with a 2.22 ERA, 149 strikeouts and just 14 walks
The 2024 AL Cy Young winner dominated down the stretch in 2024 and has apparently raised his game to an even higher level. This season, Skubal boasts a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 92-to-7, or 13.14 K’s for every walk — which would be the best ever for a qualified pitcher:
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Skubal, 2025: 13.14
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Phil Hughes, 2014: 11.63
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Bret Saberhagen, 1994: 11.00
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Cliff Lee, 2010: 10.28
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Curt Schilling, 2002: 9.58
Skubal shut out the Cleveland Guardians on Sunday, allowing just two hits and striking out 13, registering a game score of 96, the highest game score since Domingo German also scored a 96 in his perfect game in 2023. Skubal’s final pitch: a blazing 102.6 mph fastball to strike out Gabriel Arias, the fastest strikeout pitch by a starting pitcher of the pitch-tracking era.
That pitch capped a historic performance for Skubal. Not only was it his first career complete game, but he did it throwing just 94 pitches. A shutout with fewer than 100 pitches is known as a Maddux, in honor of Hall of Famer and king of efficiency Greg Maddux (who had 13 Madduxes in his career). But Maddux never had a game quite like this one: Since pitch counts began in 1988, Skubal is the first pitcher to throw a shutout with fewer than 100 pitches and at least 13 strikeouts.
As he walked out to the mound for the ninth inning, he received a standing ovation from the home crowd chanting his name.
“Little teary-eyed out there, honestly, before the inning started,” Skubal said after the game. “It was pretty cool. I just thought to myself 12-year-old me wouldn’t believe that was an opportunity to have the fan base support you the way it does and be in that moment.”
Guardians manager Stephen Vogt called him the best pitcher in baseball. It’s hard to argue with that description.
2. A major-league-leading 2.78 bullpen ERA
Let’s break down the Tigers’ relief pitching over the past two seasons:
Start of 2024 season through Aug. 10: 4.16 ERA (20th in majors)
Aug. 11 to end of season: 2.35 ERA (second in majors)
2025: 3.31 ERA (seventh in majors)
The bullpen hasn’t been quite as dominant as it was those final seven weeks of 2024, but it has been effective enough. Manager A.J. Hinch and pitching coach Chris Fetter deserve a lot of credit for mixing and matching here. Changeup specialist Tommy Kahnle, signed as a free agent, has split closer duties with Will Vest, with Kahnle recording six saves and the hard-throwing Vest locking up four wins and seven saves.
This has been the result of necessity more than some master plan. Jason Foley led the team with 28 saves in 2024 but was sent down to Triple-A to begin this season after struggling in spring training. In mid-April, Foley talked to the Detroit News about his shock and frustration in getting sent down, but after allowing one hit over 6⅔ scoreless innings in five games for Toledo, Foley was placed on the injured list before undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery earlier this month.
This could be an area in which the Tigers eventually look to add some depth. Kahnle has succeeded in throwing changeups 84% of the time but also hasn’t pitched 50 innings in a season since 2019. Beau Brieske had a 3.18 ERA a season ago as a reliever but is at 5.29 in 2025 with just 12 strikeouts in 17 innings. Overall, the pen ranks just 22nd in the majors in strikeout rate, so it is more of a pitch-to-contact pen.
3. A .726 OPS that ranks top 10 in the majors
Let’s break this down into the same three splits:
Start of 2024 season through Aug. 10: .674 OPS (27th in majors, 4.12 runs per game)
Aug. 11 to end of season: .714 OPS (13th in majors, 4.45 runs per game)
2025: .736 OPS (eighth in majors, 5.07 runs per game)
For the first four-plus months of 2024, the Detroit offense was bad — much like it had been for each season since 2017. In those years, the Tigers ranked 10th or worse in the AL in runs, consistently ranking near the bottom in both on-base percentage and slugging percentage. The offense perked up down the hot stretch to finish 2024 but has been even better this season — Detroit last averaged at least 5.0 runs per game for an entire season in 2008.
The Tigers have also improved their OBP from .300 last season to .325 so far in 2025. Two keys here: Free agent Gleyber Torres and 2020 No. 1 pick Spencer Torkelson. Torres, signed to a one-year, $15 million contract, has a .380 OBP, well above his career mark of .334 entering the season. There’s reason to believe he might keep this going as he ranks in the 99th percentile in chase rate, continuing a two-year improvement from a 25.9% chase rate in 2023 to 21.4% in 2024 to 16.0% in 2025. That has helped him to more walks than strikeouts and a solid .277 average.
Torkelson, meanwhile, is hitting .238/.351/.513 with 13 home runs and 40 RBIs — a big improvement from last year’s .219/.295/.374 line that led to a two-month demotion to Triple-A. He hit 31 home runs in 2023, so he has produced power numbers before, but this time he’s doing it with fewer strikeouts and more walks. His timing has been better, especially as he has pulled more balls in the air (and fewer on the ground). His defensive metrics are also much improved. So far, this is a much better player than we saw even in 2023, let alone 2024.
4. Javier Baez is hitting .280/.315/.459 in 2025
Hinch has done a terrific job of mixing up his lineups, especially since Matt Vierling, who was second to Riley Greene in WAR among position players in 2024, just returned for his first action of 2025. The Tigers have also been without outfielders Parker Meadows and Wenceel Perez all season. With Vierling and Meadows both injured, they were left without a center fielder. The initial plan featured light-hitting infielder Ryan Kreidler plus a little Greene, but Kreidler didn’t hit and Greene is best suited for a corner position.
So the Tigers got creative — with Baez, of all players. Despite that key home run against the Mariners, Baez was one of the worst players in the majors in 2024, hitting .184/.221/.294 with minus-1.1 WAR. They made their late run last year mostly without Baez, who played his last game on Aug. 22. With three years and $73 million left on his contract and the Tigers looking to give the shortstop job to rookie Trey Sweeney, they appeared stuck with one utility infielder on an expensive contract.
After working out in center field in spring training, Baez got his first start there April 22.
“One of the things that Javy has always been invested in is winning,” Hinch said at the time. “And he asked what he needed to do to help this team win. You can go to adjustments at the plate, play clean defense, the baserunning that he brings. But the reality is, the biggest message was: We’re going to need you at multiple positions. And he was all-in, and I think he’s taken it in stride because he saw that our team was winning.”
Baez’s offense had gone downhill in his three seasons with the Tigers, so he’s finally producing at the plate for the first time since 2021. His defense in center has been more than acceptable. Can he keep it going? Probably not. He’s the same ultra-aggressive hitter, with a chase rate that’s still over 40%. His hard-hit rates remain well below where they were during his best seasons with the Chicago Cubs. Meadows has just started a rehab assignment and will likely take over in center when he returns, but Baez has at least shown he can help out as a utility player.
Throw in Vierling — another player who can play all over the field — and suddenly Detroit’s lineup is not only versatile, but deep from one to nine with a good bench.
5. Casey Mize and Jackson Jobe are a combined 10-2 with a 3.23 ERA in 2025
The continued success of Mize and Jobe might be the key to whether the Tigers run away in the AL Central and keep this win pace going over 162 games. Mize is 6-1 with a 2.45 ERA but has a 3.90 FIP, as he has allowed a .215 average and .255 OBP despite averaging a below-average 7.7 K’s per nine innings. Jobe is 4-1 with a 4.03 ERA but a 5.02 FIP as he has a poor 35-to-24 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Despite the difference between their ERA and FIP, there is reason to believe in both pitchers. In Mize’s case, he throws strikes (with just 10 walks in nine starts), and his expected stats show a .208 average and .369 slugging percentage, almost a perfect match for his actual results — so he has done a good job of limiting hard contact and inducing an above-average groundball rate.
For Jobe, it’s all about projection improvement. We’ve seen that in his past three starts, as the highly rated rookie starter induced a few more swing-and-misses — 14, 11 and 11, respectively, after not reaching double figures in his first six starts. His changeup has been effective, giving him a nice weapon against left-handed batters. The issue is that his four-seam fastball, while averaging 96.6 mph, doesn’t miss a lot of bats. Since he doesn’t get much extension in his delivery, his “effective” velocity is just 93.0 mph, so it plays down a bit despite a fairly high spin rate (81st percentile). Bottom line: He’s nine starts into his career and has shown the potential that made him a top prospect.
And the bottom line for the Tigers overall? They’re clearly for real, with improved offensive depth, a dominant No. 1 starter and a top manager who knows how to use his roster. Detroit also has a strong farm system — No. 3 on ESPN’s preseason ranking — that will allow it to be one of the teams most likely to add significant help at the trade deadline.
The Tigers haven’t won 100 games since 1984, which happens to be the last time they won the World Series. This team has the roster to make you believe both of those things could happen again in 2025.
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Greg Wyshynski
RALEIGH, N.C. — For the Carolina Hurricanes, it was a Game 5 loss in the Eastern Conference final that ended their season. For the Florida Panthers, it was Wednesday.
The Panthers advanced to their third straight Stanley Cup Final with a 5-3 victory that saw them rally from a 2-0 first-period deficit, have Carter Verhaeghe score the game-winning goal with 7:39 left in regulation, and kill off a Hurricanes power play with three minutes left and Carolina’s goalie pulled.
It was a thrilling and intense playoff game, one that coach Paul Maurice said had “all the elements that make our sport great.” But the celebration was business as usual for the defending Stanley Cup champions.
They congratulated goalie Sergei Bobrovsky but bypassed any raucous on-ice jubilation. The most celebratory thing the Panthers did was wear their conference champion hats — although Verhaeghe joked that if they were to win a fourth straight conference title next season, they might just keep their helmets on.
“I remember a few years ago it felt like such an accomplishment,” forward Matthew Tkachuk said. “This year, it’s all business.”
The Panthers also refused to touch the Prince of Wales Trophy for the second straight season after lifting it in 2023. They lost in the Stanley Cup Final that year to the Vegas Golden Knights, before defeating the Edmonton Oilers for their first Cup in 2024.
“I mean, last year it worked. So this year, same thing,” captain Aleksander Barkov said. “This is the place you want to be as a hockey player. You want to play for the Stanley Cup, and once again, we’re here third year in a row. That’s a great achievement, but we all know we’re here to win the bigger things.”
The Panthers’ business-like mindset helped them overcome a disastrous start to the game that saw Carolina take a 2-0 lead on a pair of Sebastian Aho goals. Carolina was 6-0 in the postseason when scoring first, having done so in Game 4 to push the series back to Raleigh.
“They’re all over us and we’re serving up pizzas. We don’t look like we should have made the playoffs. And then the next thing you know, we look pretty good,” Maurice said.
Carolina couldn’t capitalize on an early second-period power play to extend the lead and then watched center Jesperi Kotkaniemi take an ill-advised offensive zone holding penalty behind the play. Tkachuk tipped home an Aaron Ekblad shot just 16 seconds into the ensuing power play to cut the lead in half. It was the Panthers’ first power-play goal in 11 opportunities over the past three games.
As usual with the Panthers, one goal led to multiple goals. Evan Rodrigues scored his first of the playoffs 30 seconds after Tkachuk’s tally. Tkachuk fed the puck to Sam Bennett while taking a hit along the boards near the benches. Rodrigues got inside Carolina rookie defenseman Alexander Nikishin to poke the puck through Frederik Andersen to tie the game.
“The message in between periods was just that if we got one, we felt pretty good that we had a good chance of coming back,” said Rodrigues, who was moved back to a line with Tkachuk and Bennett during the game. “There was no stress. The room wasn’t quiet. It was, ‘Get one and see where this takes us.'”
It took Florida to its first lead of the game. Just 4:06 after Rodrigues’ goal, center Anton Lundell got inside position on Aho to give Brad Marchand a target with his pass from the wing. Lundell tipped it home, and the Panthers were up 3-2.
“We’re comfortable in these situations. When you’ve been through it before and you’ve gone all the way, you see the different way that momentum swings can happen throughout a game and how you can take advantage of that,” Marchand said. “Even when they got that goal in the third, it didn’t phase us at all. We just kept pushing.”
The Hurricanes got the break they needed at 8:30 of the third period. Both Gustav Forsling and Sam Reinhart failed to clear the puck, and a great forecheck by Andrei Svechnikov sent a bouncing disc to an on-rushing Seth Jarvis, who flipped the puck past Bobrovsky to tie the game 3-3 and reignite the crowd.
But the Florida captain made his best offensive play of the series. Barkov held the puck in the attacking zone with Carolina defenseman Dmitry Orlov all over him. He deked around forward Eric Robinson and slid the puck to Verhaeghe, who did what he does best in the playoffs: Score the game-winning goal.
It was Verhaeghe’s 12th career game-winning goal in the playoffs, twice as many as the next-closest player in Panthers history (Tkachuk with six). It was the third series-clinching goal of his career.
“He’s got that clutch gene. Big goals at big times. It’s who he is,” Rodrigues said.
“Great goal, huge goal. Eastern Conference winning goal, so pretty big deal there,” said Tkachuk.
But the Panthers still needed a little bit more heroism, this time from their penalty kill. Bennett took a slashing penalty with three minutes left and Florida leading 4-3. The Panthers PK, led by Bobrovsky, managed to keep the puck out of the net with Carolina having pulled Andersen, until Bennett emerged from the penalty box to score the clinching goal.
The Hurricanes’ power play went 0-for-6 in the game.
“That was the killer. When you look back on this game, that’ll be a couple of lost moments for sure,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said.
Bobrovsky, who made 20 saves, said it’s a “privilege” to be back in the Stanley Cup Final for a third straight season.
“We appreciate that and we value that. But again, the most important step is ahead of us. It’s going to be a challenge,” he said.
The Panthers will await the winner of the Western Conference, where the Edmonton Oilers have a 3-1 series lead on the Dallas Stars. Whoever they face, the series will begin on the road — which might be exactly where Florida wants to be.
The Panthers have won five straight games on the road, outscoring opponents 27-7 and scoring at least five goals in each game.
In series-clinching opportunities in this postseason, the Panthers are now 0-2 at home and 3-0 on the road. The Panthers join the 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins as the only teams to go winless in multiple home clinching opportunities en route to a Stanley Cup Final appearance. Since the Stanley Cup playoffs expanded to four full rounds in 1980, there have been four teams to win the Stanley Cup without clinching any series on their home ice.
Wherever and whenever they start the next round, it’ll be business as usual for the Panthers.
“It was really different two years ago. It was so new to us,” Tkachuk said. “Whoever we play, we’ll be very prepared for them. It’s not our first rodeo with this.”
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