DETROIT – Even though Tuesday afternoon marked the final regular season appearance in a Cy Young season, Tarik Skubal ended it with a bang.
With two outs in the seventh inning, Skubal missed the strike zone by a wide margin with two consecutive pitches as his pitch count reached 100 against Tampa Bay’s Christopher Morel.
But as the Comerica Park crowd roared for him, Skubal drew a foul ball on a changeup and then hit an inning-ending 97-mph fastball for an inning-ending strikeout. The pitch was his 103rd of the game and a season record.
The 27-year-old Tigers star let out a loud scream, left the field and applauded the fans, who then chanted “Cy Young.”
“The fans have always hugged me since I’ve been here,” Skubal said after the Tigers’ 2-1 win. “Going out there this late in the season, playing in front of them and giving them a reason to cheer is the reason I play.”
The performance was the biggest moment of Skubal’s five-year career so far. The Tigers came home to Tuesday’s game as the best team in baseball, winning 11 of their last 14 games. That run took their playoff chances from under 1 percent to over 50 percent.
And most importantly, they controlled their own playoff destiny heading into a six-game home series at the end of the season. They began that home series with a dominating performance from their ace.
“He’s obviously our guy and it was a great performance,” said Tigers manager AJ Hinch.
While Skubal regularly delivers performances like Tuesday’s, Hinch pointed out that there were some complicating factors in his last performance.
For one thing, the start time of Tuesday’s game was moved up five hours on Monday night to avoid predicted rain. Rain before the game then delayed the start by an hour and ruined the pregame warm-up.
Skubal said the time difference did not affect his readiness to play and he is used to pitching after rain interruptions. But a fog during the game’s opening innings affected his grip, he said. He allowed one of his two hits and his only walk of the day in the first two innings before striking out 16 of the last 17 batters he faced in his final five innings.
“He did a great job,” Tigers catcher Jake Rogers said. “Obviously, the guys there are good too, and to hold them to two hits was pretty impressive. Anytime you hold a major league team to two hits for seven innings, that’s typical Skub.”
His performance Tuesday lowered Skubal’s ERA to an AL-best 2.39. He also leads the AL in strikeouts (228) and wins (18), moving closer to becoming the Tigers’ first Cy Young winner since Max Scherzer in 2013 and the AL’s first full-season Triple Crown winner since Justin Verlander in 2011.
And while he’s surpassing career highs in appearances and innings pitched, Skubal’s best performances have come late in the season. In his last five starts, he has a 1.42 ERA with two walks and 35 strikeouts. Tuesday was the first time this season he pitched at least seven innings while allowing two hits or fewer.
“The goal is to do that every year,” Skubal said. “The goal is to peak in September and get hot in October and see what can happen. You never know in the playoffs.”
The only question remaining is when Tigers fans will see Skubal back on the pitch.
Normally, he would be able to pitch in Sunday’s final game of the regular season against the White Sox. But if the Tigers, whose win moved them a half-game ahead of Kansas City for the final wild-card spot and 1.5 games ahead of Minnesota, can secure a playoff spot beforehand, the team could opt to rest him on Sunday before he pitches in the team’s first playoff game.
That means the next time Skubal pitches, he may be starting in his team’s first playoff game in a decade — although he hasn’t thought about it yet.
“None,” Skubal said. “We have to get there. We haven’t made it yet or anything like that. My thoughts are on Sunday. We have to keep winning, keep winning, and then we’ll make it. We can talk about that when the time comes.”
