Fighting a cold on a hot Sunday afternoon at Comerica Park, Tarik Skubal pounded his glove after inducing a pop out to escape a jam in the sixth inning -- his 14th in a row without allowing a run. He walked off the mound with a 3-0 lead, having not allowed an earned run for the fourth time this spring. He was the Tigers' No. 3 starter to open the season, but make no mistake: Skubal is the best pitcher in Detroit. This is the making of an ace.
"Tarik was dominant today," A.J. Hinch said after the Tigers' 5-1 win over the Orioles.
An ace is at his best when he doesn't feel his best. An ace makes big-league hitters look small. An ace snuffs out losing streaks and sticks the nail in series sweeps; Skubal just did both in the same week. Maybe most of all, an ace lives at the top of the leaderboards. Through seven starts, Skubal is second among American League pitchers in WAR (1.5).
He finished fourth last in the same category a year ago (minimum 140 innings pitched). Of course, he wasn't the same pitcher. With a nasty five-pitch mix on Sunday, Skubal tied a career high with 11 strikeouts and set a new career high with 21 swings and misses. At one point, he put Orioles shortstop Jorge Mateo on his butt by whiffing him on a changeup and struck him out with another changeup on the very next pitch. Aces can be mean.
"Because there were so many right-handed hitters, the change became a little more prominent. His slider's always good. And he can backdoor a slider now, which is a lot different now than just having one location he can go to. And then the explosive fastball. It's a good mix, man," said Hinch, to say nothing of the sinker and the knuckle curve. "Tarik is developing into a really, really good pitcher."
Skubal has always racked up whiffs. Heck, he struck out hitters at a higher rate as a midseason call-up in 2020 than he is now -- and he has the sixth highest strikeout rate (10.2 K/9) in the American League. The difference in 2022 is that he's cut down drastically on a pitcher's two biggest evils: walks and homers. Consider:
Among AL pitchers last season (min. 140 innings), Skubal had the eighth highest walk rate (2.8 BB/9) and the highest home run rate (2.1 HR/9). That led to the 10th highest ERA (4.34) and the second highest xERA (5.58).
This season, he has the 6th lowest walk rate (1.8 BB/9) and the sixth lowest home run rate (0.5 HR/9). And voila, the 10th lowest ERA (2.50) and the third lowest xERA (2.36).
"He's been on the attack from the first pitch of the at-bat for the majority of the season," said catcher Tucker Barnhart. "He's able to control his fastball in locations that are very effective for him, and then mix in a slider, changeup and curveball to protect those other pitches. He's been a blast to catch."
The drop in homers is drastic. Skubal has kept the ball in the yard in all but one of his starts this season. He's also been much more effective against righties, thanks largely to the enhanced break of his changeup and improved command of his slider. He smiled Sunday when asked about limiting the long ball and said, "I feel like that's kind of a media thing that blows that up."
"I'm not really thinking about that one too much. I'm just tying to go out there and keep our team in the game," Skubal said. "If I give up two home runs and we're winning 3-2, I don't really care how the runs are scored. I'm trying to limit the damage in total runs scored against me, so I don't really worry about it too much. But it's good to keep the ball in the yard and let the defense work."
For the first time this season, Skubal reached 100 pitches Sunday. It didn't look like he would need that many until he issued a pair of one-out walks in the sixth. He was already drained from the non-COVID illness that's making the rounds in the Tigers' clubhouse. Now fatigue was setting in. Hinch could tell he was tiring. He said Skubal's "misses were getting a little more extreme." But the 25-year-old has been lobbying Hinch to let him go longer, so Hinch extended the leash.
Five pitches later, Skubal was smiling and shaking hands with his manager in the dugout, shutout intact.
"I didn't want to go get him for a lot of reasons, but mostly because he'd earned the right to finish his outing," said Hinch. "He didn't feel good today, he's under the weather a bit, so for him to be pretty gutsy is nice. And his stuff was so good."
So good and still getting better, the making of an ace.
