2 weeks after elbow surgery, Skubal 'relatively close' to game velo in multi-inning bullpen

DETROIT -- Tarik Skubal tried to treat his Thursday morning bullpen session like it was a start, all the way to his trademark backwards walk off the mound and fist pump. It wasn’t for a simulated strikeout, though.

“It was a certain velocity I was trying to get to today,” Skubal said. “You have to prove to your body that it's OK to throw hard again, especially [with] it being 15 days from surgery. Just kind of let your body know and your brain know you don't have to have a governor, you're good to go and throw and compete at higher velocity.

“There's a velocity number I was trying to hit. And I hit it, so it was a good day.”

It wasn’t quite game velocity, he said, but it was high-end velocity for his bullpen sessions.

“It comes out a little bit slower than a game,” he said, “but it’s relatively close.”

There have been many good days so far in Skubal’s ramp-up from arthroscopic elbow surgery. Thursday was particularly big, because it was a muti-inning session designed to simulate the process of sitting down between innings and then ramping back up, then ramping up the fastball closer to game velocity.

“He came into my office right away and was excited,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “He probably doesn’t want me to talk like this, but there are little hurdles to clear along the way when you come back from a procedure.”

Skubal will throw a more normal, between-starts bullpen this weekend in Baltimore, then gear up for another session early next week.

Skubal confirmed he will have a simulated game or rehab start before coming off the injured list, pushing back on speculation he could return next week. While the NanoScope has accelerated the typical timetable of arthroscopic surgery, reducing the arm buildup, there are still hurdles to clear.

“I get it, I want to be back as fast as I can, too,” Skubal said. “What’s going on right now is kind of unprecedented. I don’t know in the history of the game if there has been a surgery 15 days ago and throwing a one-inning hypothetical start. I don’t know if that’s ever really been done before. …

“I get it. I want to be back as fast as possible, but I also need to be back and be healthy. It does me no good to come back fast and then something happens and I go back on the shelf again. It’s bad for everybody involved. So we’re going to be smart, but I’m also going to try and push the threshold and communicate with doctors and training staff and have a good, honest conversation on where I can go from this point and develop a plan.

"But it is kind of day by day. It is [based on] how I feel and how I bounce back, and tomorrow, how I wake up and how I feel is going to be important.”