Comstock Park — OK, now what?
That was the pressing question for Tigers ace Tarik Skubal on Sunday afternoon, after he finished his first — and possibly only — rehab start as he works his way back, at warp speed it seems, from left elbow surgery.
“That’s a good question that I’m not gonna answer,” Skubal said with a hint of a smirk after throwing five innings of two-hit baseball for the High-A West Michigan Whitecaps at LMCU Ballpark. “There’s a plan in place. I need to wake up and feel good tomorrow (Monday) and have a good week of work, and then we’ll make that decision when we need to make it.
“It doesn’t really do me any good to tell you guys when I’m pitching next.
“I need to make sure that I bounce back from this one really well.”
Skubal made his first appearance in game action since late April, before the Tigers announced that he would need arthroscopic surgery to remove loose bodies from his left elbow. He had that surgery in early May, and has been on the fast-track toward a return ever since.
Assuming Skubal, 29, the two-time American Legaue Cy Young Award winner, came away from Sunday’s start with a clean bill of health, he could make another rehab start, or his next start could actually be with the Tigers, perhaps as soon as the series in Cleveland against the AL Central-leading Guardians later this week.
On Sunday, Skubal threw five scoreless innings, allowing two hits (one was an infield single that probably should’ve been an out) and no walks while striking out six. He threw 54 pitches, 44 for strikes.
Here are the highlights of Skubal’s conversation with reporters after his outing:
Can Tarik Skubal help save the Tigers’ season?
“I think we just need to continue winning baseball games and not really worry about the outside noise and what’s going on around us,” Skubal said. “We just need to win today’s game and win tomorrow’s game and stack those days. Obviously, we kind of put ourselves in a tough spot, but we can turn that all around.
“I believe in all those guys to be able to do that and I’m excited to get back and be able to help the team soon.”
After a miserable May, the Tigers have won five of six games in June, including Sunday’s 5-4 walk-off against the Seattle Mariners. They still are 12 games under .500, at 27-39.
“I don’t know if helpless is the right word,” Skubal said of being out with an injury while the Tigers went into a tailspin. “I’ve tried to put some words around it, the only one that comes back is it just sucks when the game gets taken away from you and you don’t get to help your team and you kind of see the team scuffling a little bit. You can’t help but think if I’m on the mound that maybe I can right the ship a little bit in certain games that I pitch. I understand the impact I can have on a game. Yeah, it sucks. I’m excited to get back and impact baseball games and make a run at this thing.
“I still believe in this team. I still believe that we’re a World Series-caliber team, just with who we got and the guys we got. We’re getting healthy at the right time and we’re gonna make a good run at it.”
How did Tarik Skubal feel Sunday?
“Great, great. I really hope that (stadium radar) gun out there isn’t right, because that means I’m throwing slow. I think velocity was good, execution was good,” he said. “I felt like I threw a ton of strikes and I was in the zone a lot today. So it was a good day. … I thought I competed well and executed pitches well, and I feel good now and that’s kind of the most important thing.”
Skubal touched 99 with his fastball, according to official radar readings. His secondary pitches, including his bread-and-butter, the change-up, were crisp, too, in the 8-0 victory over the Dayton Dragons.
“The shapes were pretty good. I think there were some change-ups that I cut a little bit that didn’t have the depth that they normally do have,” Skubal said. “That’s a product of a lot of different things, right? Wind, the stadium, mound. … Velocities were good. … The results were good. The execution was good.
“And I think that matters more than the shapes.”
Did Tarik Skubal think he’d be back this soon?
“Not initially when I got the news, no, because the initial news was three months … but then when I saw (the surgeon), he goes, ‘I think I have something that will speed this up,'” Skubal said. “That’s all I put my mind on was four weeks, and I think we’re right there right now. And the surgery went well, I bounce back well, my arm feels good now, and that’s what matters and I’m excited to get back to Detroit.”
Skubal has had much more invasive elbow surgeries in the past, including Tommy John surgery in college.
That experience might’ve helped prepare him for the latest setback, and the recovery.
“Things like that happen. Whatever the plan is, I’m not really afraid of anything, because I know my work ethic and I know what I put into this game,” Skubal said. “Every single day, I try to get a little bit better and I honestly think that kind of helped me out in this situation. How quickly I was able to bounce back from this thing was based on my preparation going into it. Obviously, injuries happen. It’s a part of the game.”
What did Tarik Skubal gain by facing High-A batters?
“(Whatever) level you’re at, you’ve gotta go back and execute your pitches,” Skubal said. “At different levels, they might take some better pitches. Higher up, I feel like they get a little better at command of the strike zone. … Honestly, at any level, guys are swinging early and often against me. In the big leagues, guys that come in with 2% or 8% first-pitch swing percentage are swinging 100% against me, so it’s very normal for me to handle that.
“Upper-level guys make you pay for mistakes a little bit more. There was some two-strike counts that (were) put in play that I need to do better at executing in certain situations.
“I wasn’t really surprised by how this went today (Sunday).”
Skubal had several super-quick innings, including an eight-pitch first inning during which he struck out the first two batters on six pitches — putting the immaculate inning (three strikeouts on nine pitches) in play. It was something he admitted he was thinking about, but the third out was a grounder to second.
Was Tarik Skubal searching for something specific?
“I’m not really trying to get back to anything. I feel really good right now. I’m not really chasing anything. I’m just trying to be me,” Skubal said. “If I try to chase a version of myself, I think that’s a slippery slope and you can kind of run yourself down a rabbit hole and negatively impact performance.
“So I’m just gonna try to be present and be me and go out there and execute. It’s good to see velocity, obviously. That’s kind of my thing. I throw hard. And I think all of my shapes were pretty good.
“It was good. I’m just trying to be me and who I am.”
Skubal was Skubal, especially on the competitive front — even in a High-A baseball game. He had a couple extra-long stares into home plate on borderline pitches that were called balls, and he was pumped up when Whitecaps first baseman Garrett Pennington made a nice catch along the netting in foul territory.
What did Tarik Skubal think of the Whitecaps crowd?
“Really good crowd, obviously,” he said of the sellout of nearly 9,000 fans (for a game that was sold out before it was announced Skubal was pitching because of, yes, a 6/7 ticket promotion). “It’s special. It speaks about the state of Michigan, the state of the Tigers and the fans, the fans of the Detroit Tigers. I understand that this is in Michigan, but they don’t have to come and watch me pitch in a High-A baseball game.
“To kind of get a standing ovation, too, walking off, you appreciate those things. I think we’ve got the best fans in the game. The fact that they showed up, and I saw some ticket prices (on the secondary markets) … I’m like, ‘Whoa.’ That just means a lot. That just means they care about me and I care about them.”
This was Skubal’s first appearance for the Whitecaps since a rehab stint in 2023. He pitched briefly out of the bullpen for West Michigan in 2018, after he was drafted out of Seattle University.
“This is where I became a prospect,” he said. “Ninth-round draft pick, I don’t think they had any plans in me being who I am, from where I was drafted. I kind of became a prospect here. I pitched really well here and then got onto some prospect lists and had a really good ’19 and have been fortunate enough to pitch in the big leagues since.”
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Here’s what Tigers ace Tarik Skubal said after Sunday’s rehab start
Reporting by Tony Paul, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Tony Paul, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
