How Team USA stint has Skubal amped to lead Tigers to World Series

LAKELAND, Fla. -- The clubhouse at Joker Marchant Stadium was virtually empty Wednesday morning. The Tigers were playing a three-hour drive away in Fort Myers, and players who didn’t make the trip had the day off. But for Tarik Skubal, it was back to work.

He headed onto the back fields for a bullpen session, then headed back into the clubhouse. After pitching for Team USA last Saturday night, then being in the dugout for Monday’s 5-3 win over Mexico, he settled back into Spring Training mode so quickly upon his return to Florida on Tuesday that he could feel his body getting tired as he watched Team USA's loss to Italy on TV.

• After tremendous experience with Team USA, Skubal's next start will come with Tigers

“I have to get back on a Spring Training regimen,” Skubal said. “The days start at 6 in the morning.”

And yet, as he gets ready to slot back into the Tigers' rotation and resume his preparation for Opening Day, he’s a different pitcher and person than when he left Tigertown. The experience he gained in the World Baseball Classic has changed him forever.

“It was an outstanding experience,” Skubal said. “Just being a fly on the wall in that room is going to impact my career in a positive way -- the conversations I was able to have with a multitude of different guys, watching these guys prepare, scouting. Everything that they do is what makes them great, and it pushes me to want to be a better version of myself. And seeing all those guys, it's just special -- just the way they go about it and the way they prepare.

“We're coming home off a bus and it's 1 in the morning and guys have the video of the next day's starter up, and I'm just like, 'Dude, I love this. This is baseball.' We all have one common goal. If anything, it's going to impact my career in a positive way and help me lead by example more. If we're trying to accomplish something like the World Series here, I think those things are going to have to happen, and I think it's great. I love it.”

Skubal tried brainstorming every possible idea to find a way to continue that. But no matter what he and Tigers manager A.J. Hinch came up with, it kept coming back to the nine-day gap between the WBC finals and Opening Day.

“It's nine days away, and then I'm going to miss Opening Day on that decision, and now, I'm impacting my team because now we're going to have to juggle schedules around to get somebody else to go,” Skubal said. “Trying to navigate all that information and then trying to create a plan, I just felt like I was doing too much. As bad as I want to do this, as bad as I want to get there and play, this was the plan from the jump. And that's kind of what I ultimately decided on doing, come back to camp. …

“I tried to add a day from Opening Day. I'm like, 'Can [March] 25th happen twice?' That's what I'm trying to do. It's like the leap year. Is there an extra day I can add?”

The experience of pitching for Team USA, for representing his country, made Skubal want to try. To walk across the field at Daikin Park in Houston, a place where he was booed heartily during the 2024 postseason, and hear his name chanted as he headed to the outfield to begin his warmups is something he’ll never forget. The entire experience makes him want to do it again if given a chance, especially if Major League players ultimately take part in the Olympic baseball in 2028 in Los Angeles.

“Absolutely,” Skubal said. “I'm in. Let's get the timing right, make sure I'm healthy and feel good, and absolutely I'm in.”

It not only changes his experience as a baseball player, it changes how he watches other sports.

“You watch the Winter Olympics and you're like, 'There's no way this is a sport.' But someone's doing it, and they're dedicating their life to it,” Skubal said. “It's just special. Your emotions change, and I didn't understand that yet. I hadn't been a Team USA alum, so I'd never been in that room.

“All those weird sports where you're like, 'Where do you even train? How do you train to prepare for this?' That person has bought in on that, and you just have a respect level for all those guys, because I'm doing the same thing but for the Detroit Tigers. When you get to play for Team USA, it's really special.”

For now, however, he’s gearing up to face the Blue Jays on Saturday in Dunedin.

“I've never really had a problem getting up for Spring Training games,” Skubal said. “I don't think I'll have a problem with that at all.”

When Skubal was told he’ll be starting opposite former Tiger and fellow multitime Cy Young winner Max Scherzer, he definitely didn’t have a problem.

“Oh, [heck] yeah,” Skubal said.