On the final day of September, the Detroit Tigers owned the Cleveland Guardians. And in October, anything can happen. Just ask Tarik Skubal.
During the fourth inning of Game 1 of the Detroit Tigers-Cleveland Guardians wild-card series, an ESPN reporter asked Tigers manager A.J. Hinch when he might consider taking Tarik Skubal out of the game.
“I hope never,” Hinch said.
Why would he? The way Skubal pitched Tuesday, Sept. 30, you want to leave him on the mound overnight and come back tomorrow to keep going.
Fourteen strikeouts? In 7⅔ innings? Almost half the batters Skubal faced went down swinging or looking, including 11 of the last 15 he faced. Heck, he was still throwing 100 mph shortly before he left the field.
Losing streak? Division lead? Nobody cares. Just like that, it’s a whole new season.
One, won.
“This was my fifth (game) against them this year,” Skubal told ESPN after the 2-1 victory over the Guardians that edged the Tigers within a victory of advancing to the ALDS. “You come to learn each other. I don’t know if it’s positive or negative. But the game doesn’t change. You still have to gain the leverage and get guys out.”
Oh, he got ‘em out, all right. If Skubal had been a bouncer, the bar would be empty.
Remember, watching the Tigers play the Guardians is like watching two people share a salad. They don’t score a lot. They don’t hit a lot. Offensively, they’re less Bonanza Steak House buffet than French crudité.
So when you get a artist like Skubal on the mound in your first game of a three-game playoff series – and you jump out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning - you’re feeling pretty good about the canvas.
But even for Skubal, this was a masterpiece.
Running Tarik Skubal to zero
Last year’s AL Cy Young Award winner (and probably this year’s, too) started his afternoon with a strike to Steven Kwan, who then quickly grounded out. Skubal fanned the next two batters, making the great José Ramírez look momentarily lost.
He breezed through the second inning.
He struck out the first two batters in the third. Then two more in the fourth, and two more in the fifth.
As the game went on, he seemed to get stronger. Skubal was blowing pitches past batters, then fooling them by throwing 10 miles an hour slower. Of course, with this guy, going 10 mph slower still gets you pulled over for speeding.
Fastballs. Changeups. Sliders. The Cleveland batters were flailing. They managed just three hits off Skubal, two of them to the infield. Hinch had said in that fourth inning interview that he had no strings on his ace’s performance.
"As long as he is under control and like the way he’s going about it," Hinch said, "he's going to get the ball."
Well, Skubal threw 107 pitches, the deepest performance of the year, and carried the game far into the eighth inning, before stepping aside for Will Vest.
Tigers fans were no doubt happy to see this. Hinch has more commonly gone earlier to his bullpen. But perhaps realizing that a three-game series leaves no chance for a Skubal return, he chose to take his pitcher’s tank down to zero.
Even that decision was scary. In the bottom of the ninth, Vest saw Ramírez reach first base on an infield hit, then race all the way to third on a throwing error by Javy Baez. Just like that, Cleveland had its best threat with nobody out, and Tigers fans were no doubt screaming, “Tell the umps you made a mistake! You never meant to take Skubal out!”
But in a sign that perhaps the recent ugly hex is over, Vest got the next batter to strike out, then caught Ramírez in a rundown on a chopper to the mound. Threat neutralized.
Moments later, Vest and Skubal were embracing, and the Tigers were 1-0 in the only part of the season that really matters.
“I think (the early 1-0 lead) impacted our entire team," Skubal told ESPN. “I think that everybody kind of let out – not that we’re holding our breath – but post-season tension and pressure runs high. So I think that let everybody settle in a little bit.”
One, won.
Skubal erases Guardians' hopes
This was fine win, and a nice moment of relief for the Tigers and their fans. Detroit was the worst performing club in the American League during September. Cleveland was the best. But on the final afternoon of the month, Detroit owned the day. And now it’s really October baseball. Anything can happen.
Knowing the Tigers and Guardians, anything might. Casey Mize could fare much differently Wednesday against the now-desperate Guardians, and it’s doubtful Mize will be throwing flameballs in the eighth inning the way Skubal was.
But for now, Tigers fans, we should take a final pause of appreciation for what Skubal accomplished on the mound Tuesday, under a portrait-blue sky and in perfect weather.
All he did was unleash a throwback gem, a playoff starter going deep into the eighth inning with complete control, no jams, nothing to escape, and seemingly no nerves, which may be the most impressive thing of all.
Remember, this is a guy whose last outing, one week ago, was in the same stadium, where he:
1. Hit a batter in the face and ended his season;
2. Made a bizarre throwing error through his legs
3. And lost the game.
You’d never have known it Tuesday. That was Leonard Bernstein with a conductor’s wand. Zorro with a blade. Jackson Pollock with a bucket of brushes. We just witnessed greatness, folks, so powerful that it reset the equation on the Tigers' chalkboard.
Lose the division? Win the playoff. Lose September? Win October. Tarik Skubal on Tuesday was like a Man In Black. He just erased Tigers fans bad memories.
One, won.
Contact Mitch Albom: [email protected]. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Albom: Skubal zapped Guardians and bad memories for Tigers fans
Category: General Sports
