ATLANTA — The Detroit Tigers have fallen five games under .500 for the first time in the 2024 season.

In Tuesday's 2-1 loss to the Atlanta Braves, right-hander Casey Mize showcased his ability to compete as he bounced back from a two-run first inning, but the defense made two errors and the offense remained all but dead.

"I'm always going to compete," Mize said, "but at the end of the day, it's just too many pitches per inning. It didn't allow me to go anywhere close to as deep as I wanted to go in the game. Four innings isn't enough."

The Tigers (34-39), finishing with five hits and two walks in Tuesday's game at Truist Park, have a 29-39 record since their 5-0 start to the season. They've dropped nine of their last 12 games with three losses in a row.

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The Tigers scored their lone run against right-hander Spencer Schwellenbach in the sixth inning, thanks to Riley Greene and Gio Urshela.

Greene opened the sixth inning by hitting Schwellenbach's first-pitch cutter — located middle-in — to the gap in right-center field and hustling around the bases for a triple.

"Just trying to make something happen there," Greene said.

It was the Tigers' second hit of the game.

"We needed to score," manager A.J. Hinch said. "We're down 2-0, so it was important for us to get some momentum going back to have us stay in the game where we were a couple hits away from either tying the game or taking the lead. Anytime you're trying to claw back, you need a spark."

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The Tigers cut their deficit to 2-1 when Gio Urshela hit a slider below the strike zone for a single with one out in the sixth inning, scoring Greene.

After that, the Tigers received a two-out single from Matt Vierling off reliever Pierce Johnson in the seventh inning and a one-out single from Mark Canha off reliever Joe Jiménez in the eighth inning, but those runners were stranded.

All three batters were sent down by Braves closer Raisel Iglesias in the ninth inning: Justyn-Henry Malloy (strikeout), Zach McKinstry (lineout) and Carson Kelly (flyout).

Malloy, a rookie designated hitter playing in the 13th game of his MLB career, finished 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, leaving him hitless in his last 13 at-bats.

Casey Mize battles

The first inning had all the makings of a bad day for Mize.

The first three Braves batters recorded hits — Jarred Kelenic (single), Ozzie Albies (RBI triple) and Marcell Ozuna (RBI single) — to take a 2-0 lead, but Mize responded by sending down the next three batters to escape further damage.

"Two-strike execution of the first three hitters was the difference in the game," Mize said. "I'm trying to elevate a heater to Kelenic there, and something we worked on is when I'm trying to go up, try not to miss too high up to that waste pitch, and I went the other direction this time, too much over the plate. Albies, I leave a curveball over the plate. Ozuna, I leave a split too far up with two strikes. That's the difference in the game. I need to be better."

Mize also kept the Braves from scoring in the second, third and fourth innings. The 27-year-old allowed two runs on five hits with zero walks and three strikeouts across four innings, throwing 87 pitches.

"It's huge," Greene said of Mize's competitiveness. "It shows who he is as a pitcher. It doesn't matter what happens, he's going to give us his best."

Urshela, the third baseman, made a throwing error in the second inning and second baseman Colt Keith, who entered Tuesday's game worth minus-8 defensive runs saved, made a fielding error in the third inning. Mize wasn't fazed by the errors, but the mistakes extended his pitch count.

Mize, who threw 54 pitches in his first two innings compared to 33 pitches in his final two innings, won a 13-pitch battle against Albies with two outs in the second inning. A flyout to center field stranded runners on first and second base.

"Just don't lose it," Mize said. "I committed to throwing those two pitches (fastball and slider) until the at-bat was over, and I didn't want to give in and didn't want to walk him, so I kept driving some heaters in there."

Mize generated 11 whiffs on 57 swings — a 19.3% whiff rate — with four fastballs, four sliders, two splitters and one sinker. His four-seam fastball averaged 96.9 mph, up from his average of 95.4 mph in his first 13 starts.

He had his best fastball command since mid-May.

"It opens up some other stuff," Mize said. "The slider played a little bit better off it. It was coming out better than it has been. If I feel like I have an electric fastball, I think that allows everything to get a little bit better. I just got to hone in on some of the misfires with some of the offspeed, just to allow the fastball to make those pitches better."

Mize has a 4.43 ERA in 14 starts this season.

Spencer Schwellenbach from Saginaw

Until the sixth inning, the Tigers produced just one hit against Schwellenbach. The 24-year-old, who was born in Saginaw and attended Heritage High School, allowed one run on three hits and two walks with seven strikeouts, throwing 89 pitches.

It was the fourth start of his MLB career.

"He's got a lot of pitches, and he came right at us with a variety of them," Hinch said. "We hadn't seen him before. He did a few things differently. He threw his split in the strike zone a little bit more to Riley. He generally hadn't thrown that for a strike. He was pretty overpowering with the fastball and the cutter."

Schwellenbach racked up 18 whiffs on 49 swings — an impressive 36.7% whiff rate — with two fastballs, seven cutters, four sliders, three curveballs and two splitters.

Keith had the Tigers' lone hit until Greene's leadoff triple to open the sixth inning. Keith hit Schwellenbach's curveball for a single with one out in the second inning, but the Tigers stranded him.

The Tigers have been terrible on offense since Kerry Carpenter, a left-handed hitter who clobbers right-handed pitchers, landed on the injured list May 28 with a lumbar spine stress fracture.

The hole in the lineup is obvious.

The Tigers hit .236 with a .306 on-base percentage and a .684 on-base-plus-slugging percentage when Carpenter was healthy, but in his absence, the Tigers are hitting .216 with a .276 OBP and a .635 OPS across 20 games.

"It's part of baseball," Greene said. "You go through those stretches."

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers five games under .500 after 2-1 loss to Atlanta Braves