Brendan White impresses with scoreless inning

LAKELAND, Fla. — Tigers manager A.J. Hinch is looking at multi-inning relievers who can bridge the gap between Detroit’s projected starters — none of whom pitched a full season last year — and a rebuilt back end of the bullpen filled with high-strikeout young arms. So when Brendan White came in from the bullpen to follow Matthew Boyd for the third inning of Thursday’s 10-3 win over the Orioles, it was an interesting test for a reliever in his first Major League camp who pitched the ninth inning in his previous outing Sunday.

“Definitely different from last week,” White said. “But it was good. Same prep, same routine.”

Realistically, there was a bit of coincidence to it. Hinch had White warming in the second inning in case Boyd hit his pitch count early. Lefty relief candidate Chasen Shreve was lined up to pitch the fourth inning against the four consecutive left-handed hitters in the middle of the O’s lineup. That opened the third inning for White against the top of Baltimore’s order, including 2022 AL Rookie of the Year runner-up Adley Rutschman and 2023 AL Rookie of the Year candidate Gunnar Henderson.

Still, even if it wasn’t necessarily an audition, it was a showcase. As White worked through Baltimore’s talented young hitters, allowing a sharp ground-ball single to Rutschman but striking out Henderson on a 96 mph fastball, it was easy to see why the Tigers like White for the long-term. It’s also easy to see why the Tigers feared losing White in the Rule 5 Draft if they hadn’t added him to the 40-man roster in the offseason.

The fastball — which has a natural cut movement due to White’s throwing mechanics — got outs, but the high-spin slider is the pitch that plays. On Sunday, he threw three sliders and drew whiffs on all of them, averaging 3,008 rpm. His eight sliders Thursday didn’t garner any swings and misses, but drew two called strikes, averaging 2,889 rpm.

For reference, just 11 Major League pitchers who threw more than 200 sliders last year averaged at least 2,850 rpm, according to Statcast.

“Oh my gosh,” Hinch said of the slider Thursday. “The metrics are great. His usage is great. He’s got a ton of confidence in it. It can be a strike, or [move] strike to ball. Everything about it says it’s going to be effective.”

That’s the kind of spin rate that Tigers top prospect Jackson Jobe draws with his slider. White, 24, was a 26th-round pick in the 2019 Draft out of Siena College. He was once a…