ATLANTA – Detroit Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal gave everyone an injury scare in the seventh inning. He removed his glove, shook his left arm and rubbed his left elbow.
Manager A.J. Hinch, assistant athletic trainer Kelly Rhoades and catcher Dillon Dingler took a mound visit to check on him, but after a practice pitch, Skubal stayed in the game.
After that, he struck out the side.
“He had a funny feeling on the outside of his arm,” Hinch said.
“I just didn’t feel right,” Skubal said, “but I felt fine after, and I feel fine now.”
A healthy Skubal stayed sharp during the third time through the order as he completed the sixth and seventh innings, but the Tigers’ bullpen let him down in a 4-3 loss to the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday, April 29, in the second of three games in the series at Truist Park.
The Tigers wasted Skubal’s strong finish, as Matt Olson destroyed a middle-middle cutter from right-handed reliever Kenley Jansen for a walk-off two-run home run in the ninth inning.
Skubal owns a 2.70 ERA over 43⅓ innings in seven starts this season.
The 29-year-old retired the final eight batters he faced, including all six (four by strikeout) in his third trip through the Braves’ lineup. Opponents entered Friday hitting .433 with a 1.014 OPS against Skubal during his third time through the order in his first six starts, but he shut down the Braves.
“I didn’t really ever put much stock into the conversation we had last time,” Skubal said, referencing a previous discussion about his late-inning troubles. “It’s the game of baseball. Those things, I would rather trust my track record than seven starts.”
The Tigers (15-16) will try to avoid the sweep against the Braves (22-9) in the series finale Thursday (12:15 p.m., Detroit SportsNet) in a matchup between left-hander Framber Valdez for the Tigers and right-hander Bryce Elder for the Braves.
In Wednesday’s game, Skubal finished better than he started.
The Braves took a 2-0 lead in the first inning, thanks to a single from Drake Baldwin and a two-run home run from Ozzie Albies after Ronald Acuña Jr. stuck out swinging to open the inning.
Albies turned on Skubal’s up-and-in fastball and pulled it 400 feet with a 102.1 mph exit velocity. Albies has seven homers in 31 games.
It was only the second homer allowed by Skubal in 2026.
From there, Skubal – the reigning two-time American League Cy Young winner – dominated the Braves with efficiency.
He received help along the way from third baseman Colt Keith, who made diving plays in the first and sixth innings, and started double plays in the fourth and fifth innings.
The Tigers immediately answered the Braves with two runs in the second inning, facing right-hander JR Ritchie.
Everything happened with two outs.
A double from Wenceel Pérez and a walk from Jace Jung set the table for Kevin McGonigle. The AL Rookie of the Year favorite delivered once again, ripping a first-pitch changeup for an RBI single, scoring Pérez. Moments later, Jung, called up Wednesday after Javier Báez’s injury, scored on Ritchie’s wild pitch to tie the score at 2.
The Tigers took a 3-2 lead in the third inning when Riley Greene drove Ritchie’s middle-away changeup to the left of straightaway center field for an opposite-field home run.
He hammered the ball 417 feet with a 106.2 mph exit velocity, for his fourth homer in 31 games.
Skubal needed 23 pitches to complete the two-run first inning, then used just 10 in the second, 12 in the third, 13 in the fourth, seven in the fifth, 10 in the sixth and 16 in the seventh.
He struck out the side in the seventh after the injury scare, sending down Olson (97 mph fastball, swinging), Austin Riley (96.9 mph fastball, swinging) and Mauricio Dubón (81.1 mph curveball, swinging).
After Skubal, the Tigers turned to right-handed reliever Kyle Finnegan for the eighth inning and Jansen for the ninth.
Finnegan burned through 29 pitches for three outs as he put himself in trouble with back-to-back two-out walks, but he escaped when Baldwin grounded out.
Then, Jansen created his own issues in the ninth.
A leadoff walk to Albies came back to haunt him when Olson hit the walk-off home run. The middle-middle cutter traveled 397 feet with a 104.7 mph exit velocity – all the way over the fence in right-center field, landing in the Braves’ bullpen.
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tarik Skubal finishes strong after injury scare, but Tigers lose to Braves
Reporting by Evan Petzold, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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