Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Tarik Skubal, who has won the American League Cy Young Award two years in a row, didn’t mince words when addressing his team’s recent struggles with the trade deadline fast approaching.
Speaking to The Detroit News earlier this week in a story that ran Thursday, Skubal laid out the stakes plainly: “The reality is we need to play better baseball or else, come the deadline, you give the front office an option to reassess where this team is. And if they don’t think what we have is a World Series — or playoff-caliber — team, then the whole team is going to look different. That’s just the nature of the beast.”
The 29-year-old lefty is scheduled to take the mound Friday for his second appearance since having surgery on May 6 to clear bone fragments from his pitching elbow. Detroit and the Chicago White Sox are kicking off a three-game series that day.
Skubal’s first outing back didn’t go as planned — the Cleveland Guardians handed him a loss last Saturday, 3-1. He surrendered three runs, two of which were earned, on five hits across 4 2/3 innings.
The Tigers have dropped four of their last five games and find themselves 9.5 games behind the White Sox and Guardians, who are currently deadlocked atop the American League Central standings.
Skubal made clear the urgency extends beyond just himself, telling The Detroit News: “The future for a lot of people in this room — not just myself — the outlook could look very much different in two months and it all comes to an abrupt end. We still control our destiny a little bit. We still do.”
He continued: “We play the team this weekend that’s winning our division. It’s another big series. You don’t want to be playing playoff baseball in June, but it feels like we’re playing playoff baseball. We don’t have very much room for error, and everyone understands that. Everyone understands there has to be a sense of urgency. There has to be. Not panic. But there has to be a sense of urgency to try to win every game we play.”
On the season, Skubal carries a 3-3 record with a 2.81 ERA over eight starts. He has racked up 49 strikeouts while issuing just seven walks in 48 innings of work.
Over his seven-year career with Detroit dating back to 2020, Skubal has gone 57-40 with a 3.06 ERA across 145 games, including 142 starts. In 814 2/3 career innings, he has struck out 938 batters and walked only 179.
