Tigers’ Tarik Skubal keeps staking his claim as the best pitcher in baseball 

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DETROIT — In the home dugout before the top of the ninth, Tigers catcher Dillon Dingler peered over the green padding and gazed into the bullpen. He was in a rush of adrenaline on his way off the field after the eighth. He missed whether manager A.J. Hinch gave ace Tarik Skubal a fist bump or a handshake.

Around here, a fist bump means you’re still going. Handshake means your day is done.

Out in the ’pen, Dingler saw no one throwing. So after eight dominant innings in which Skubal made a dogged Cleveland Guardians lineup look desolate, Dingler knew the big lefty was coming out to finish the job.

“I was like, ‘Oh, this gonna be special,’” Dingler said.

Special. That’s one word for it. Dust off a thesaurus and select any adjective of your choosing. Skubal on Sunday was a master at the top of his game. Michelangelo with 100 mph and seam-shifted wake in his palette.

Entering this day, the Tigers had dropped three straight to the Guardians. Detroit’s stranglehold on the American League Central was quickly loosening. Cleveland was again the ultimate thorn in the paws of these Tigers.

Detroit responded with the ultimate elixir, the potion of the reigning Cy Young Award winner who continues to pitch like he’s on a level different from the rest.

By the time all was said and done, the Tigers walked away with a 5-0 victory. Skubal pitched all nine innings. Allowed only two hits. He finished the first complete game of his career — his first since a pair of seven-inning complete games as a college freshman — in only 94 pitches.

He threw what the baseball world calls a “Maddux” — a complete game in fewer than 100 pitches — more in the style of Clemens. He struck out 13 batters, generated 26 swings and misses.

“It is hard to top what he did,” Hinch said. “What an incredible performance when a team needed it the most.”

Informed of all the superlatives after the game, Skubal kept nodding.

“Cool,” he said when he learned he did all this in 94 pitches.

“Good,” he said when told he threw only 22 balls all game.

103 TO FINISH IT. ARE YOU KIDDING?!@TarikSkubal pic.twitter.com/Ad787oOIex

— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) May 25, 2025

From the outset, Skubal’s pitches emanated an odor of untouchability. He jogged out on the field to Jay-Z’s “Holy Grail.” Sippin’ from your cup ’till it runneth over. He started the game with the pronounced leg kick that, in the words of Tigers broadcaster Jason Benneti, announces he’s coming home. That’s what it’s like when Skubal is at his best. Every pitch a proclamation of dominance.

Last season he won the pitching Triple Crown, leading the league in wins, ERA and strikeouts. This season Skubal has a 2.49 ERA and, at times, has looked even better. His whiff, chase, strikeout and walk rates have all improved. His velocity is up across the board. His changeup is missing more bats than ever.

Sunday he was undaunted by a contact-oriented Guardians lineup that was aggressive early in counts.

“The improvement is staying stubborn in the strike zone when it was clear they were gonna swing early and try to ambush him,” Hinch said.

Despite Cleveland’s best efforts, Skubal dotted his powerful fastball again and again. He swiped the seams on his twirling changeup. He dispatched hitters with a vengeance and injected his venom deep into the Guardians’ order.

This was Skubal’s first time facing Cleveland since that fated Lane Thomas grand slam in last year’s ALDS, the one that wrecked Skubal’s stretch of dominance and halted the Tigers’ serendipitous postseason run.

In various interviews over the winter, Skubal admitted he used that Thomas slam as fuel for workouts on winter days where his body was sore or his motivation was dwindling. But at his locker the day before this outing, Skubal downplayed any nightmare flashbacks. He said he has relitigated his pitch choice on the sinker Thomas smacked and arrived at the same conclusion. It was the right call. The buy-in was there. The execution was simply off.

The Tigers, Skubal said, do not harbor any animosity toward the Guardians.

“That’s not a story I really want to create,” Skubal said. “The playoffs are the playoffs. We lost. They beat us. It is what it is. There’s no story there. I got a ton of respect for a lot of guys in that dugout, including their manager.”

All fair. But despite the Tigers’ ascendance to the top of the American League, Cleveland has still had Detroit’s number for the bulk of the past three days. The Guardians grinded out more at-bats. They overpowered the Tigers with their bullpen. Manager Stephen Vogt even seemed to outmaneuver Hinch given the Tigers’ fatigued roster and taxed bullpen. So here in the finale of a four-game series, pride was on the line as much as any marker in the standings.

Good as Skubal was, some of the vibes early Sunday were still wretched. A Roku broadcast meant first pitch came at 11:35 in the morning. The Tigers stranded the bases loaded in the second inning. Made some suboptimal outs on the bases in each of the first two frames and left runners in scoring position again in the third. But in the fourth? Just when Zach McKinstry appeared to be cooling off, the scrappy utility player blasted a two-run home run to right field. The Tigers took a 2-0 advantage. They would need no further support. Detroit tacked on three more runs in the fourth anyway.

The defining scenes of Skubal’s outing kept mounting. He ended the fifth inning by breaking Jhonkensy Noel’s bat with a violent four-seamer. On his way off the field, Skubal turned and snatched shards of the bat off the ground. It seemed as though he was collecting a memento from another stolen soul. Turns out he was simply being a good samaritan. He gathered the pieces of shredded lumber and handed them to Cleveland’s bat boy.

In the top of the sixth, Guardians third baseman Will Wilson ended Skubal’s perfect-game bid with a double to right-center.

“It was sad,” Dingler said, “But obviously it didn’t faze him, and he kept doing what he was doing.”

With one out, Skubal hit left fielder Nolan Jones to create more traffic. Then he induced a 6-4-3 double play to erase any hint of strife.

To end the seventh, Skubal struck out Kyle Manzardo on a 101.7 mph sinker, then tied for the fastest pitch of his career. As the ball breezed past Manzardo’s bat, Skubal pounded his fist in his glove. Instead of his patented roar, this time he backpedaled off the mound like Steph Curry after hitting a 3-pointer. That’s Skubal. That’s swagger. He is the son of a high school basketball coach and grew up with hoop dreams of his own. The talent in his left arm dictated a different direction. He still plays with emotion more often found on the hardwood than between the stodgy lines of a diamond.

“I’m an emotional player,” Skubal said. “I feed off energy in stadiums. When everyone is on their feet chanting pretty good, special things can happen when you’re in my shoes.”

That all led us to the ninth. Skubal entered the inning with his pitch count at 85. Hinch did not hesitate to send him out to finish the shutout bid.

“Obviously we are careful across the industry in how we handle these guys,” Hinch said. “The pitch counts have diminished and the inning totals have diminished. Sometimes it’s your big boy’s day, and you got to leave him out there.”

As Skubal stepped on the rubber, Tigers fans cooed his name. Skoooob. They later chanted: Tari-ik … Sku-bal.

It was a lot to take in for the kid who had only one Division I offer coming of the desert outpost that is Kingman, Ariz.

“You get a little teary eyed out there, honestly, before the inning started,” Skubal said. “It’s pretty cool. I just thought to myself 12-year-old me wouldn’t believe (there) was an opportunity to have a fan base support you the way it does and be in that moment.”

Skubal started the ninth with as much ferocity as ever. He struck out Nolan Jones. He got Angel Martínez to roll over to third. He got Gabriel Arias down 0-2. And then, just before the final scene, he called Dingler to the mound and removed his cap. The Comerica Park crowd had turned so loud Skubal could not hear his PitchCom.

“He was going to signs,” Skubal said of Dingler. “I was like, ‘No, bro, just come out here real quick.’”

All reset on the mound, Skubal had the volume on the PitchCom device all the way cranked up. The crowd grew silent. The call for a fastball came in so loud it might have hurt Skubal’s ears. He worried the batter could hear the call. But always with a flair for the dramatic, Skubal tilted back, lifted that leg and accelerated at full force. He threw a hard, four-seamer way off the plate inside. Arias swung haplessly and missed.

The radar read 102.6, the fastest pitch of Skubal’s career, the hardest pitch any Detroit Tiger has thrown in this lovely Statcast era.

How’s that for a finish?

How’s that for a statement?

“He’s the best,” Vogt said. “He’s the best pitcher in baseball, and he showed it today.”

(Photo: Rick Osentoski / Imagn Images)

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