DETROIT -- Two-time defending American League Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal will undergo arthroscopic surgery to remove loose bodies from his elbow after a flare-up on Sunday night.
Neither Skubal nor the Tigers would put a timetable on his return. A typical timetable for recovery from such a surgery is two to three months.
“It’s anybody’s guess right now until he actually has the surgery,” manager A.J. Hinch said about a timetable. “We’ve got to talk to the doctor, have the surgery and form a plan of rehab. So a lot has to happen before we race to the return. I think it’s a relatively simple procedure, if you can call any type of surgical intervention simple.”
Skubal was scratched from his scheduled start against the Red Sox on Monday night, five days after an injury scare against the Braves in Atlanta, and will go on the injured list. Tyler Holton made his second consecutive start in Monday's bullpen game. Ty Madden was called up from Triple-A Toledo and logged five scoreless innings as the bulk reliever in Detroit's 5-4 loss.
It’s the kind of scenario Tigers fans and officials feared as soon as Skubal shook his left arm, grabbed his forearm and summoned catcher Dillon Dingler to the mound last Wednesday night in Atlanta. Skubal said Sunday afternoon he put in a normal between-starts routine and was ready to go Monday, but he had another flare-up during his work later Sunday.
“I thought I was progressing in a very positive manner,” Skubal, who will be a free agent at the end of the year, said. “Yesterday's catch play just didn't really go great, which led to getting scans and getting the information.”
Atlanta wasn’t the first time the issue flared up. Skubal said he has been dealing with it off and on all year. But loose bodies can float around the elbow without issue until they float into the wrong place, which has happened on more than one occasion.
“This is something that I've kind of been dealing with,” Skubal said. “But then again, it was progressing in a positive manner, so I wasn't very concerned about it. I kind of figured once I got my workload up, just from my general soreness in Spring Training, that it would go away. Everything that I was doing in the training room and in between starts was progressing the right way, I thought. The thing in Atlanta just so happened to be in a [public spot] -- it's hard to hide from the camera when you're on the mound, so I didn't have time to fix it. Sometimes I can do it in the dugout where there's no cameras.
“This is something that I've been dealing with all season. It's good to get an answer, honestly.”
As bad as the answer is, it’s not the worst-case scenario. Skubal’s ligaments are apparently fine, and the surgery shouldn’t impact them. The surgery will simply clear the loose bodies. He’s expected to pitch again this season.
“From my understanding, you just go take [them] out,” Skubal said. “I think the length of the rehab is probably just getting your Spring Training buildup up again, getting your volume up. But the procedure itself, I think, is pretty simple as far as what’s been explained.”
Still, Skubal said, “It [stinks]. I pride myself on taking the ball every fifth day and giving our team a chance to win. Not being able to do that for whatever the timeline is -- I don’t have one and I don’t think it’s fair to probably guess and create one right now -- it [stinks]. I want to play baseball. I give a lot to this game. But if there’s something positive to take out of it, I’m going to come back and be the same guy. I’m not really too worried about that. Unfortunately, I’ve had two arm injuries before, and I think I came back pretty well from those ones. So I’m just going to trust the work that I’ll put in and trust the training staff and all the resources this organization has for me.”
Skubal had Tommy John surgery while in college at Seattle University, forcing him to miss the 2017 season and leading him to fall to the ninth round in the 2018 MLB Draft. He underwent surgery to repair the flexor tendon in his left forearm in August 2022, sidelining him for 11 months.
Since his return from that rehab process in July 2023, he has not only been dominant but durable, from a 41-15 record to a 2.41 ERA and 2.37 FIP in 84 starts and 511 innings. Until last week, his only injury scare since 2023 was a fourth-inning exit in Miami last September with left side tightness.