ST. LOUIS — Detroit Tigers reliever Mason Englert, a Rule 5 draft pick who hadn’t pitched above the Double-A level until this season, credits his two-part pregame routine for what happened in Friday’s 5-4 win over the St. Louis Cardinals.
The Tigers were ahead by one run.
The bases were loaded with two outs.
More than 35,000 fans at Busch Stadium were cheering.
“All the stuff I’ve been doing for my mind,” Englert said. “It’s helping me stay quiet, and with the adrenaline, I don’t feel racing thoughts. It just felt like I’m totally present there. I was just having a lot of fun.”
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Englert, who detailed his mental health journey to the Free Press in spring training, is disciplined in his routine, both as a baseball player and as a human being, with cold exposure and meditation. When he meditates, he focuses on a specific thought, phrase or breathing pattern.
The meditation helps him on the mound.
“It just allows you to feel super-present,” Englert said. “When your mind is quiet, it lets your true self come out, so when you make a big pitch and have a big reaction, whatever it is, it’s not staged. It’s all real. It’s whatever is coming out of you because your mind is quiet. It’s the purest reaction.”
Englert experienced that type of moment for the first time Friday night in his MLB career. The 23-year-old, protecting a one-run lead with the bases loaded, went to war against Cardinals pinch-hitter Nolan Gorman in the bottom of the eighth. He struck him out swinging with a sixth-pitch slider to escape the jam.
“It’s one of those situations you think about when you’re a kid,” Englert said.
The kid went crazy.
He pumped his fist, cussed a couple of times and marched back to the dugout.
“That’s big for the kid. That’s a special moment for him,” said Alex Lange, who picked up his sixth save with a scoreless ninth inning. “He’s growing up. Remember, he came from A-ball. He’s learned a lot, on and off the field, and I’m excited to watch him grow, work some leverage and continue to get big innings for us. He’s elite.”
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Before the strikeout, Englert took over for right-handed reliever Jason Foley and inherited two runners. He lost an 11-pitch battle and walked pinch-hitter Brendan Donovan, who fouled off five pitches in a row with two strikes, but didn’t back down from Gorman.
Both pinch-hitters were left-handed hitters.
Englert, a right-hander, struck out Gorman with a slider on the outside part of the strike zone, even though his best pitch is a changeup. The trust in his slider was reinforced by a recent conversation with assistant pitching coach Robin Lund.
“He was like, ‘You don’t have one pitch that favors over the others. You got four pitches, so don’t think of one as the primary,'” Englert said. “It’s not forcing a pitch because of the idea that it’s my pitch. If I would have thrown a changeup there, maybe I don’t throw it for a strike, and maybe I do, but I thought the best chance to get out of it was a slider there, so that’s why I went with it.”
In 10 relief appearances, Englert has a 4.82 ERA with five walks and 17 strikeouts across 18⅔ innings. He impressed the Tigers, and earned a spot on the Opening Day roster, by showing confidence and throwing strikes in spring training. (Before the Rule 5 draft, Englert posted a 3.64 ERA with 31 walks and 136 strikeouts across 118⅔ innings in 24 starts in the Texas Rangers’ farm system last season.)
In 2023, Englert’s pitch usage is fascinating.
He has thrown 36.1% sliders, 29.7% changeups, 23.6% four-seam fastballs and 10.5% curveballs. His secondary pitches — specifically the slider and changeup — have allowed him to pitch up to three innings out of the bullpen.
Giving up three home runs on fastballs at the beginning of the season forced him to adjust his mix from previous seasons. He realized throwing fewer fastballs, at least as a rookie reliever in the big leagues, boosted his effectiveness.
“In High-A and Double-A (as a starter), like 95% of my fastballs were targeted up-and-in to hitters,” Englert said. “That’s all I would do. If it was 0-0 (count), and I’m targeting up-and-in, I would let it loose over the plate, and they wouldn’t do damage very often.
“Here, I went into it with that same mindset. I wanted to get that first-pitch strike with a fastball, and all the sudden, I throw it middle and I’ve given up three home runs on fastballs. I didn’t want to keep doing that.”
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But Englert’s off-field development — prioritizing cold exposure and meditation — is the ultimate key to his on-field development. Back in 2021, his life was consumed by panic attacks, depression and suicidal thoughts.
Two years later, Englert was striking out Gorman, one of MLB’s rising stars, in a pumped-up environment at Busch Stadium. He would not have succeeded in the high-pressure moment against the Cardinals without his life-changing mental work behind the scenes.
“His mental toughness is really strong,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “It’s a lonely island on the mound, and he’s shown incredible poise to be able to handle any situation that he’s given. Some of that’s probably innate, some of that is the journey he’s had, some of that is just unwavering belief that his best is good enough.”
On Friday night, Englert’s best was better than good enough.
Remember what Lange called him?
Elite.
“I feel like I know I’ve been capable of this,” Englert said. “It’s just getting to see all the hard work from the mental health stuff show up in baseball. That’s been really nice. But I know I’ve been capable of it, not in a confident or cocky way, but it’s just nice to see the hard work show up on the field.”
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.