HOUSTON — This is Tarik Skubal’s calling card now. A powerful pitch. A strikeout to end an inning.
Then a fist pump and a mighty roar. “Gotta be heads-up when he comes off the mound,” Detroit Tigers manager A.J.
Hinch said recently. “If you greet him with too big of a hug, then he might knock you down the stairs.” Advertisement Skubal has done it all season, the displays of raw emotion and the performance that validates such boisterous acts.
He did it again Tuesday in Houston. Making the first postseason start of his career, nervous as he has been since his major-league debut, Skubal lived up to the billing he set with his dominant regular season. Choose whichever title you prefer: ace; workhorse; frontline starter.
Skubal checks them all. He further cemented his growing claim to the title of Best Pitcher In Baseball, this time twirling six scoreless innings and leading his fledgling Tigers to a 3-1 victory in Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series. “I know it’s on a grander scale, and it’s in front of a big crowd, both locally here and our fans and the country,” Hinch said.
“But we’ve seen a lot of these Tarik Skubal starts. This is not an outlier. This is why many people refer to him as one of the best pitchers on the planet.
” Facing the dangerous top half of Houston’s order, Skubal retired Jose Altuve, Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez on five pitches in the first inning. That is one way to set the tone. Here at Minute Maid Park, a stadium that has haun.
