The reigning AL Cy Young winner has been the most dominant pitcher in baseball the last few weeks. Friday night, Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal struck out 12 Texas Rangers in seven innings, pushing his ERA down to 2.08. He allowed a run on two singles and did not walk a batter. The Tigers beat the Rangers (DET 2, TEX 1) for their fifth straight win, and eighth in their last nine games.
Skubal recorded those 12 strikeouts Friday thanks to an incredible 32 swings and misses. That’s 32 swings and misses on 96 total pitches, so exactly one-third of his pitches were whiffs, and only 59 swings. Rangers hitters whiffed more times than they made contact with their swings against Skubal. A whiff rate in the 30% range is fantastic. Over 50% is out-of-this-world stuff.
Since pitch-tracking launched in 2008, only 25 pitchers have recorded 30 swings and misses in a game, and only 10 times has a pitcher had 32 swings and misses. The last was Lance Lynn, then with the Chicago White Sox, against the Seattle Mariners on June 18, 2023. He had 33 whiffs. The pitch-tracking era record is 35 whiffs by Jacob deGrom, Danny Duffy, and Clayton Kershaw.
In his last six starts, Skubal has allowed three runs in 37 innings (0.73 ERA) while striking out 50 and walking one. He’s the first pitcher with a 50/1 K/BB in a six-start span since deGrom spanning the 2021-22 seasons. That was around several stints on the injured list. Here are the last five pitchers with a 50/1 K/BB in six starts with no extended breaks mixed in:
A year ago Skubal, 28, won the pitching Triple Crown with 18 wins, a 2.39 ERA, and 228 strikeouts. The 228 strikeouts led baseball and his 30.3% strikeout rate led the American League. Only NL Cy Young winner Chris Sale had a higher strikeout rate at 32.1%. Strikeout a quarter of the batters you face, and you’re doing well. Anything over 30% is elite.
Detroit’s starters entered Friday with a 3.27 ERA, fourth lowest in baseball, and their 2.0 WAR was sixth. Skubal’s 2.08 ERA paces a rotation that also includes Casey Mize (2.53 ERA), Reese Olson (3.03 ERA), and Jack Flaherty (3.79 ERA). When your rotation is doing that, you have a chance to win just about every day, and the Tigers have been winning most days lately.
Friday’s win improved the Tigers to an major-league best 26-13. Their plus-84 run differential is the best in baseball. No other team is over plus-61. Our Dayn Perry looked at how Detroit’s well-roundedness has fueled their scorching hot start.
This news was originally published on this post .
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