DETROIT — The 25th and final fastball from Tarik Skubal on Sunday, and his 61st of 63 pitches overall, registered at 98.1 mph on Statcast, his hardest pitch of the afternoon. He tried to climb the ladder on Alejandro Kirk and induce the Blue Jays catcher to chase the heater up and out of the zone, but Kirk got enough to foul it off.
It wasn’t his hardest pitch since his return to the Tigers’ rotation; he hit 98.4 mph last Tuesday against the A’s. Still, it was a good sign to be holding his velocity deeper into his outing, even if his outings aren’t normal depth for him for now.
“His velo is continuing to climb,” manager A.J. Hinch said after Detroit’s 4-3 extra-inning loss to Toronto at Comerica Park. “He feels good. He looks good. It was exactly what we wanted before the break with back-to-back starts.”
Even if Sunday’s loss — a game Detroit led by two runs with one out to go before Matt Chapman’s walk and Danny Jansen’s homer tied it off closer Alex Lange — sent the Tigers into the All-Star break with another American League East series defeat, a 2-4 homestand and a bitter taste following Saturday’s combined no-hitter, the Tigers really can say that at least they have their health.
Skubal, Eduardo Rodriguez, Akil Baddoo, Riley Greene and Beau Brieske all returned this week. All but Brieske got into game action, and Brieske was warming in the bullpen for a potential appearance Sunday.
Skubal’s return, and his return to form, is particularly important as the Tigers reassemble a rotation that had been ravaged by injuries. Between the two performances this week, the left-hander tossed eight scoreless innings with two hits, two walks and 11 strikeouts. On Sunday, he quieted a Blue Jays lineup stacked with dangerous right-handed hitters looking to avenge being no-hit Saturday.
Other than longtime Tigers nemesis Whit Merrifield, who led off the game with a bloop single and hit a ground ball through the middle in the third, nobody hit Skubal. The exit velocity of the hardest-hit ball in play off him was 96 mph. Toronto hitters swung at 17 of his fastballs and whiffed on seven, including strikeouts of Chapman in the first inning and Jansen in the fourth. Skubal spotted five more for called strikes. His changeup drew three more swinging strikes, fanning Bo Bichette in the opening inning and Kirk in second.
“I think the changeup was a good pitch for these guys to get them off the fastball,” Skubal said. “It’s a good right-handed hitting team. You have to be able to go in and out. When you go away, you have to be able to expand away. And when you go in, you have to be able to expand in.”
The only opponent Skubal can’t beat so far is his pitch count. That’s likely to stay that way for a while. Hinch said Skubal will be lined up for the fifth start out of the All-Star break, meaning he’ll get at least eight days of rest before he takes the mound in Kansas City near the end of their upcoming road trip.
The Tigers are likely to stretch Skubal’s count gradually, though not by piggybacking him with Reese Olson, who is set to rejoin the rotation after the break. Detroit will also likely use off days to shuffle the rotation and give Skubal extra rest. It could bring back an occasional bullpen game in stretches without off-days to create the same effect; Detroit plays 17 games in a row across four cities and three time zones out of the break, starting Friday in Seattle.
It might look overly cautious. But given the stops and starts Matthew Boyd encountered in his return last year from his flexor tendon surgery before suffering a torn ulnar collateral ligament a week and a half ago, the Tigers can be forgiven for progressing carefully and not taking unnecessary chances with a key part of their future and their potential ace down the stretch if Rodriguez is dealt at the Trade Deadline. Any other extended absence with Skubal could turn this into a lost season if not hurt them beyond that.
“You kind of feel like you can keep going,” Skubal said, “but it’s probably the smart move. There’s probably a lot more research being done that I don’t know about why I’m getting taken out of the game. Just trust the people making the decisions and go from there.”