Asked about Tarik Skubal's changeup, Aaron Judge smiled and shook his head. Asked about Aaron Judge, Tarik Skubal couldn't help but laugh. They made eye contact when Skubal flexed and roared and spun around after his 12th strikeout of the day and found Judge looking at him from second base. Between a strikeout in the third, one of the game's best hitters had homered and doubled against one of the game's best pitchers.
"That’s what I told him," Skubal told reporters after the Tigers' 5-2 loss to the Yankees on Sunday. "A little emotion popped off, and then we kind of locked eyes for whatever reason and I was just like, 'You’re really good at this game.’ There might have been some bad words in there, but that’s what the gist of it was."
On a soggy afternoon where he couldn't grip his slider, Skubal was mostly untouchable in the Bronx. Judge was really the only hitter to get him, outside of an RBI double by Oswaldo Cabrera on an errant slider in the third. The 2022 American League MVP crushed a 97-mile-per-hour heater at the knees for an opposite field homer in the first, then drilled another into center for a double in the sixth. Skubal got Judge swinging in the third when he dropped a curve between two 98-mile-per-hour heaters at the top of the zone.
“It's fun going back and forth," Judge said. "I got him the first time, then he comes back and strikes me out and I was like, ‘Alright, I’ll remember that.' But it’s impressive, man. It’s fun competing against guys like that, especially the young ace of the team. I’m looking forward to more battles with him, that’s for sure.”
The Tigers were swept in the Bronx when their typically stellar bullpen failed to bail out their typically quiet offense. They managed six runs in three games, and that was that. But Skubal had one of his most dominant outings of the season in the series finale, becoming the first Tigers pitcher this decade to strike out 12 without issuing a walk and the youngest Tigers pitcher with a 12-strikeout game since Max Scherzer in 2012. They were both 27 years old at the time of the feat.
Scherzer won the first of his three Cy Young awards the next season. Skubal might be headed for his first this season. His latest performance actually raised his ERA to 1.90, fifth in the AL. He's also first in the AL in WHIP (0.77), tied for first in strikeouts with Garrett Crochet of the White Sox and fourth in batting average against (.175). He struck out 10 of the last 15 batters he faced against the Yankees.
Here was Judge, summarizing the Skubal experience: "He’s got 99, a great changeup, great slider, cutter, a curveball he’ll mix in there. There’s really no game plan, just try to get a strike and don’t miss it."
Skubal just continues to get better. He debuted for the Tigers in 2020 and finished with a 5.63 ERA across eight games. He's shaved it each year since to 4.34, 3.52, 2.80 and now 1.90. He was the best pitcher in the majors last season by fWAR after he returned in July from an offseason forearm surgery and is showing no signs of letting up. Asked why this has been his best season yet, Skubal said, "That’s a good question." He decided on an "all-encompassing" answer.
"I’m confident in my stuff, my stuff’s pretty good, I’m executing, (Jake Rogers) is calling a great game, the scouting reports. It’s everybody involved in the organization, training staff, coaching staff, everything, it all adds up," Skubal said.
Pretty good?
“He’s one of the best pitchers in the game, especially left-handed pitchers," said Judge. "Been fun to watch him over the years. With a guy like that that’s got plus velocity, plus-plus stuff, plus feel for all his stuff, can throw any pitch at any time, it’s really just about trying to get a pitch over the heart of the plate you can do damage on."
"If I’m going to get beat," said Skubal, "I want it to be with me swinging first."
Hence why he went after Judge without blinking in each of their encounters on Sunday. Judge, of course, packs a punch of his own.
"You think I would have learned from the first at-bat when he went backside on the sinker, and then I was like, 'You know what, he can’t do it twice.' And he did it twice," Skubal said. "I’m gonna make you hit another pitch and he’s really good and he did that. Kind of learned the lesson the hard way, I guess."
These days, as the rest of the Yankees could tell you, it's typically Tarik doing the teaching.