HOUSTON — This is Tarik Skubal’s calling card now. A powerful pitch. A strikeout to end an inning. Then a fist pump and a mighty roar.
“Gotta be heads-up when he comes off the mound,” Detroit Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said recently. “If you greet him with too big of a hug, then he might knock you down the stairs.”
Skubal has done it all season, the displays of raw emotion and the performance that validates such boisterous acts. He did it again Tuesday in Houston. Making the first postseason start of his career, nervous as he has been since his major-league debut, Skubal lived up to the billing he set with his dominant regular season.
Choose whichever title you prefer: ace; workhorse; frontline starter. Skubal checks them all. He further cemented his growing claim to the title of Best Pitcher In Baseball, this time twirling six scoreless innings and leading his fledgling Tigers to a 3-1 victory in Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series.
“I know it’s on a grander scale, and it’s in front of a big crowd, both locally here and our fans and the country,” Hinch said. “But we’ve seen a lot of these Tarik Skubal starts. This is not an outlier. This is why many people refer to him as one of the best pitchers on the planet.”
Facing the dangerous top half of Houston’s order, Skubal retired Jose Altuve, Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez on five pitches in the first inning. That is one way to set the tone.
Here at Minute Maid Park, a stadium that has haunted many a pitcher in the postseason, Skubal was undeterred by the moment and the magnitude. His signature changeup spun and faded away from hitters. He used the pitch 32 times. He also attacked the strike zone with his powerful four-seam and sinker. Of all the reasons Skubal has asserted himself as a force to be reckoned with, his strike-throwing prowess is perhaps the biggest. The pitcher who fired first-pitch strikes at a 68.7 percent rate in the regular season and who ranked second among all qualifying pitchers in the percent of pitches in the zone simply did more of the same.
“He’s done that all year,” catcher Jake Rogers said with a shrug.
🗣️ How we feelin’ Detroit!? pic.twitter.com/xuh5b0Jjyt
— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) October 1, 2024
Only two moments served as roadblocks for Skubal on Tuesday. The first came in the fourth inning, when the Astros mounted a challenge. Alvarez singled. Alex Bregman battled for nine pitches before flying out. Yainer Diaz walked to end another nine-pitch affair. With two on and one out, Skubal did not alter his approach or revamp his plan. He put his trust in Jake Rogers, the backstop who has caught every Skubal start this season and the one whom Skubal said he shook off only once all game. That was on the pitch Alvarez lined up the middle at 117 mph.
“It almost killed me,” Skubal said. “So, yeah, I learned my lesson. I’m not shaking.”
Facing shortstop Jeremy Peña, Skubal notched a strikeout on a filthy changeup low and in. Then, facing Victor Caratini, Skubal cinched a punchout with another changeup, this one floating off the plate and outside.
And then came this Tiger’s latest roar.
“There’s part of it that you kind of black out and that just happens,” Skubal said. “But, yeah, it was a big pitch.”
The second glimpse of trouble came in the sixth inning. Skubal was locked in another duel with Bregman. After firing a pitch, he appeared to land oddly on his follow-through. Skubal called Rogers out to the mound. He paced behind the dirt. Hinch and trainer Ryne Eubanks jogged onto the field. Everyone held their breath. Skubal told them he was cramping in his left hamstring.
“I felt a lot better when he said the word ‘cramp,’” Hinch said.
Rogers looked at his ace and said: “One more. That’s all we need.”
Skubal remained in the game. Bregman laced a line drive off the left-field wall. But Skubal was not fazed. He attacked Diaz and recorded his sixth and final strikeout with a high fastball, at 99.4 mph.
After only 88 pitches and six scoreless innings, Skubal retreated to the dugout. He ventured down the steps leading the clubhouse and Hinch followed. They decided his day was done.
Tarik Skubal: “I mean, I feel fine. I’m not really worried about it going forward.”
“But it’s frustrating. I don’t know what I can do. I hydrate enough. Nutrition is fine. Probably a product of trying to throw every pitch pretty hard. I’m a heavy sweater.” https://t.co/9rcOjH2aXL
— Cody Stavenhagen (@CodyStavenhagen) October 1, 2024
Even if the ending came one inning premature, the result was precisely what we have seen from Skubal all season. Precision. Power. Dominance.
This is the sort of mixture a pitcher can use to exert his will, and power a team toward the next round. Facing his biggest challenge yet, Skubal answered in cold-blooded fashion. Anyone taken by surprise simply has not watched him enough.
“You see him screaming off the mound, as competitive as he is,” Hinch said. “We see that every day, and I’m glad the baseball world gets to see that on the biggest stage of the year so far because it’s authentic, and it’s a real impact to our club.”
The plan from here, Hinch said, is “pitching chaos.” That has become the Tigers’ brand over the past two months, ever since Hinch and president of baseball operations Scott Harris sat for their post-trade deadline breakfast and devised a plan to put their young and unproven arms in the best positions possible for success.
We’ve seen it in so many games. Green pitchers throwing in new situations. Unheralded arms inducing game-altering outs.
“I love it,” Skubal said. “Those guys have been doing it for the last month and a half. Just mixing and matching, coming in any situation, any scenario. Doesn’t matter. Straight from (Triple-A) Toledo right into leverage innings. Doesn’t matter who’s taking the ball. They come in and make pitches.”
We saw this all again Tuesday in Game 1, when right-hander Beau Brieske entered from the bullpen, called upon to clean up Jason Foley’s two-runner mess and nix any chance of Houston’s postseason magic. Not so long ago, Brieske was in camp hoping to make the rotation as a starter. A couple of years before that, he was a 27th round draft pick who threw 93 mph. But through hard work, the right guidance and now the right opportunities, Brieske has shown signs of emerging as a fearsome reliever.
“When I am coming out with my best stuff and I’m on the attack and I’m executing, I have stuff that can play in any inning,” Brieske said. “I’ve always believed that.”
Less than two weeks ago, Brieske pitched the Tigers out of a second- and-third ninth-inning jam in Baltimore, a win that helped propel them to the postseason. He entered in a similar spot Tuesday. In the bullpen, he reminded himself exactly that.
“I’ve done it before. Be ready,” he said. “Then when I ran on the field, the moment kind of sucks your attention right in there.”
Armed with his fastball and a nasty changeup, Brieske got Caratini to line out to left field. He walked Chas McCormick after failing to hit on what he called “the kill shot,” a power fastball up and away. But he hit 100.1 mph on the radar, a career high that exclaims his ability. The game’s final batter was Jason Heyward. The veteran outfielder hit an 88.9 mph line drive that buzzed straight into the glove of first baseman Spencer Torkelson. Another exhale.
“Well-placed defense,” Hinch said with a grin.
Before Game 1, the Tigers sent Reese Olson to the media room as the official spokesperson of Pitching Chaos. The term means the Tigers will not operate with a traditional starter in Games 2 or 3.
“The only thing I really know,” Olson said, “is whenever A.J. tells me to go out to the mound, I’m going to go.”
After the game, Brieske raised small weights to his sides in the clubhouse, going through arm care, theoretically unsure of when he will next be used. Tyler Holton, the Tigers’ do-it-all-bullpen ace, had a recovery device strapped to his shoulder after throwing only two pitches and dispatching Kyle Tucker. The Tigers announced he will serve as the Game 2 opener on Wednesday.
As Tigers players walked out of the ballpark Tuesday, the sun still high in the Texas sky, they could not be entering a more ideal situation. Their ace shoved in Game 1. Their bullpen held the lead, no worse for the wear despite playoff drama. They have two more games to pick matchups to their liking, then use their best arms with little restriction, to play the scrappy but outside-the-box style that has helped them defy the odds.
“I don’t think it’s a small thing today, in the first playoff game for a lot of these guys, that it looked eerily familiar to the last two months,” Hinch said.
Imposing as the Astros are, the Tigers now find themselves in a new position, one where they hold the leverage.
Since MLB moved to a best-of-three wild-card format, teams that win Game 1 have advanced all eight times.
(Top photo of Tarik Skubal: Tim Warner / Getty Images)
