DETROIT -- The nitpicking from Tarik Skubal sounded almost accountant-like.
“I counted about 20 noncompetitive pitches today,” he lamented after striking out nine Athletics over 96 pitches and five innings of one-run ball Tuesday night. “And that’s a high percentage of my outing there. Part of it is a good lineup. Another part of it is I sprayed the ball a little bit, especially with fastballs and some changeups, too. I don’t think it was my best showing by any means.”
The crowd at Comerica Park didn’t seem to mind. If anything, the announced gathering of 28,736 seemed louder than usual. They roared when Skubal took the mound, and again when he struck out the side in order in the opening inning. They gave him an ovation coming off the mound when a Jonah Heim groundout ended the fifth inning.
Maybe it was appreciation for what they were watching, and the uncertainty of what follows.
Nobody knows how many more starts Skubal will get as a Tiger, with the Trade Deadline just four weeks away and the club fighting to claw back into postseason contention. Tuesday’s 6-2 victory was another step in the right direction, Detroit’s sixth win in its past seven games. Even with Skubal’s self-critique, the Tigers are playing some of their best ball when they absolutely have to.
They had a similar stretch a couple weeks ago and missed an opportunity to build on it. Tuesday’s win against an A’s squad that played them well last season but has struggled of late was a reversal of that. And the reigning American League Cy Young Award-winner put on a show to set the tone.
Skubal allowed five home runs over two starts in the Tigers’ previous homestand before regrouping to dominate last week at Yankee Stadium. He liked the way he’d been pitching; he just didn’t like the results. The way he came out Tuesday felt like a statement.
The only previous time Skubal had struck out his first three batters in a start, he’d frozen Milwaukee’s Joey Ortiz on a fastball before fanning Rhys Hoskins and Christian Yelich on changeups. Not only did Skubal fan the A’s in order to open Tuesday’s outing, he got them swinging on different secondary pitches -- Zack Gelof on the changeup, Nick Kurtz on the curveball and Shea Langeliers on the slider. He got all three again before his outing was done, all swinging and missing at fastballs at 97-plus mph.
Skubal froze Max Muncy on a 97 mph fastball to strand two runners in the second inning, then fanned Langeliers on another 97 mph heater as part of a third-inning escape with a runner on second. Still, the A’s made him work, grinding out six at-bats of six pitches or more.
Kyle Finnegan was already warming in the bullpen when Langeliers worked an eight-pitch walk off Skubal with two outs in the sixth inning, but Skubal stayed in to get a Heim groundout and finish the frame. His velocity held throughout, and he showed no signs of tiring while matching his highest pitch count of the season in his fifth start back from arthroscopic surgery.
“He battled,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “They did make him work. Those were some pretty intense innings.”
Skubal’s lone run allowed came on a home run from rookie ninth hitter Henry Bolte, who connected with a 3-1 slider and sent it deep to left leading off the third inning.
It wasn’t efficient, especially by Skubal’s standards: His two walks matched a season high as well as his total over his previous four starts since returning from the injured list. But it was effective.
“I think that’s the positive to take away,” Skubal said. “You can beat yourself up and criticize yourself; I’m pretty good at that. Sometimes, you have to look a little optimistically. Even when I’m spraying it, it’s still tough to score. I did my part to put my team in position to win, and the bullpen picked me up big time. All in all, it was a good day, because we won.“
Skubal is tentatively scheduled for one more start before the All-Star break, pitching Sunday’s first-half finale against the Phillies. That could change, Hinch told MLB Network Radio, depending as much on how much swingman Keider Montero pitches during the week as on how Skubal feels. With no All-Star selection to worry about and a four-day All-Star break, Hinch has some leeway with his ace.
The crowd, no doubt, would love to see as many Skubal starts as possible. The better the Tigers play over the next few weeks, the better the chance they’ll see him for the stretch run.