A while back, before the Tigers turned into the best team in baseball, Tarik Skubal figures "a bunch of guys were planning on going to that Monday Night Football game" across the street, on the eve of the MLB playoffs. He smiled and said, "Things have changed."
"That's what we wanted," said Skubal. "End-of-the-season stuff sucks when you're not playing for something."
On Monday night, the Lions will host the Seahawks at Ford Field. The Tigers will be in either Baltimore or Houston, preparing to play their first postseason game in 10 years the next day. And Skubal will be preparing to take the ball.
"I can't wait!" he yelled amid the mayhem of the Tigers' champagne-soaked celebration after they clinched a wild card spot Friday night. "I'll start going over scouting report stuff -- probably not tomorrow, my head might hurt, but I'll do it on Sunday."
Skubal said he's been waiting for this opportunity "since I got to the big leagues" in 2020. He remembers watching the Cubs-Indians World Series in 2016 when he was in college, especially "that Rajai Davis homer off of Aroldis (Chapman) that tied Game 7, the ensuing rain delay and then the Cubs coming back to win it all for the first time in more than 100 years.
Skubal was a sophomore at Seattle University at the time, two years away from being drafted by the Tigers. But he was far from thinking about what it would be like to pitch on baseball's biggest stage.
"Hell no," he said. "Those guys were like my idols. I was idolizing that moment for them. Look at that '16 Cubs roster. They were loaded with players. But to answer the question, no, I thought I was on a very different level than them -- but here I am."
And here they are, the Tigers in the playoffs after completing one of the most improbable late-season runs in MLB history. Their wild card opponent is yet to be determined, but it almost doesn't matter with Skubal on the mound. They'll have the advantage in Game 1 no matter what.
"It's going to be fun," said Skubal. "That's the motivation for me to put in the work every offseason and during the season, to be trusted and to have the confidence from A.J. and the rest of the guys in the clubhouse to say, 'Hey, you're going to take the ball Game 1.' I'm very exited and it means a lot."
Skubal isn't just a lock to win the American League Cy Young. He's likely to win the first AL pitching Triple Crown in a full season since Justin Verlander in 2011, leading the league in wins, ERA and strikeouts. That's all well and good, but Skubal has bigger goals in mind, starting next week.
"'84 was the last year that a World Series has been won here," he said, "and we look at rewriting the history books on that."
