The Detroit Tigers might not have won without Casey Mize’s grit.

Mize, a right-hander seeking solutions to his struggles — namely, an 8.22 ERA in his previous four starts — in his return from elbow surgery and back surgery, delivered a bounce-back performance Thursday against the Washington Nationals.

It was a good performance the 27-year-old needed desperately.

The Tigers beat the Nationals, 7-2, to avoid a sweep of the three-game series at Comerica Park, thanks to Mize’s six innings of one-run ball. Mize allowed just four hits and one walk with four strikeouts across six innings, throwing 84 pitches before departing with a 2-1 lead. He has a 4.43 ERA in 13 starts this season.

Likewise, the Tigers’ offense solved some struggles of its own, scoring five runs on five hits and one walk in the bottom of the seventh inning.

SKUB AND ROG: Tarik Skubal and Jake Rogers: Friends, crossword puzzle enthusiasts, batterymates

Facing right-handed reliever Derek Law, the Tigers (33-35) strung together three hits in a row with Ryan Kreidler’s bloop single, Matt Vierling’s bloop single and Andy Ibáñez’s RBI double (on a two-strike slider) to take a 3-2 advantage.

Mark Canha put the Tigers ahead, 4-2, with a sacrifice fly. The Nationals swapped Law for left-handed reliever Robert Garcia for a matchup with left-handed hitter Riley Greene.

He stepped to the plate with a .167 batting average and a .550 OPS against left-handed pitchers in 65 plate appearances this season, but Greene won the left-on-left matchup against Garcia with an RBI single for a 5-2 lead.

The Tigers made it 7-2 when Justyn-Henry Malloy — playing in his ninth MLB game — hammered a 95.2 mph fastball into the left-field corner for a two-run double.

Malloy also hit a solo home run in the sixth inning.

Mize competes

Facing the Nationals, Mize generated just three whiffs on 33 swings for an underwhelming 9.1% whiff rate — following one whiff on 36 swings in his last start — but he generated soft contact to grind through six innings.

It was his first six-inning start since mid-May.

The Nationals scored their only run against Mize in the fourth inning on a sacrifice fly from Ildemaro Vargas. After the sacrifice fly, the inning ended when catcher Jake Rogers threw out Luis García Jr. trying to steal second base. (The Nationals scored their second and final run off right-handed reliever Shelby Miller in the seventh inning.)

Mize pitched out of trouble in the second and third innings.

Vargas, a left-handed hitter, grounded out on a down-and-away splitter in the second to leave a runner on third base; Jesse Winker, another lefty, grounded out on a down-and-away slider in the third to strand leave runners on the corners.

Mize then retired the final seven batters he faced.

He generated his three whiffs with two sliders and one splitter. The combination of his four-seam fastball and two-seam fastball didn’t miss any bats for the second start in a row, spanning 97 fastballs/sinkers thrown.

JHM goes deep

Before the double, Malloy crushed a middle-up slider from Law for a 407-foot solo home run to left field. He punished the ball with a 107.9 mph exit velocity.

It was the second homer of Malloy’s career, and the first at Comerica Park.

Malloy, hitting .217 in nine games, finished 2-for-3 with three RBIs and one strikeout. He was hit by a pitch in the second inning and struck out swinging to leave the bases loaded in the third inning.

The Tigers grabbed a 1-0 lead on Canha’s RBI single in the third inning against left-hander Patrick Corbin.

Corbin, a star in the Nats’ 2019 World Series victory who entered Thursday’s game with a 5.80 ERA in his previous 107 starts, performed well against the Tigers. He allowed one run on four hits and two walks with four strikeouts across 5⅓ innings, throwing 94 pitches.

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

Listen to our weekly Tigers show “Days of Roar” every Monday afternoon on demand at freep.com, Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. And catch all of our podcasts and daily voice briefing at freep.com/podcasts.