Skubal's strong start spoiled by one big inning

HOUSTON -- Twelve pitches.

That’s how quickly Tarik Skubal's gem turned into four runs, tying his season high, and just his second loss of the season, a 4-0 Tigers defeat to the Astros on Friday night at Minute Maid Park.

Considering the aggressiveness the Astros showed against Skubal from his first pitch, a 96 mph fastball that Jose Altuve drove off the out-of-town scoreboard in left field, it fit the script.

“I do think their plan was pretty obvious,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “They were going to ambush early, which is advantage Tarik in a lot of outs tonight.”

For five innings and two turns through Houston’s lineup, Skubal leveraged that to his benefit.

His only two strikeouts of the night came in stranding Altuve on third in the opening inning, spotting a 97 mph fastball on the outside corner to Yordan Alvarez before flipping a changeup down in the zone to fan Yainer Diaz, ending an eight-pitch battle that included six fastballs in the top part of the strike zone and above.

The fastball to Alvarez was one of just seven called strikes over Skubal’s 84-pitch outing. The battle with Diaz was Skubal’s longest at-bat of the night, and one of just four at-bats that lasted longer than five pitches.

Skubal retired 15 of 17 batters after Altuve’s first-inning double, the exceptions being a hit-by-pitch to Jeremy Peña later in the first inning and an Altuve walk in the third. Nine of those 15 outs came on ground balls. Six went to third baseman Gio Urshela, including four consecutive batters from the fourth inning into the fifth. Five outs came on the first or second pitch.

It wasn’t classic Skubal by any stretch, except for the zeros under each inning.

“Keep doing what I'm doing,” Skubal said.

Skubal and catcher Jake Rogers were rolling, and they were keeping the Tigers in a scoreless duel opposite Detroit area native and Wayne State University product Hunter Brown. As they readied for the third trip through the Astros order in the sixth inning, they discussed the game plan to leadoff man Altuve.

“In the dugout, Skube’s like, ‘What do you want to do?’” Rogers said. “I said, ‘Ball-to-strike slider.’”

It was a different approach to Altuve, who had taken a first-pitch changeup for a ball in his second plate appearance en route to his walk. Opponents were hitting .194 off Skubal’s slider entering the night, according to Statcast, though the slider is one of many pitches Altuve can handle.

“[The first-pitch] backdoor slider to Altuve maybe [could’ve been] a little more away," Skubal said.

Like the first-inning fastball, Altuve stayed on it and laced a line drive off the wall in left-center field for a leadoff double that started the 12-pitch swing.

Up came Alex Bregman, who had grounded out on a changeup and popped up a first-pitch high fastball in his first two at-bats. He took a high fastball for ball one, but slugged the two-seamer that followed.

“Tried to go in with the two-seam there,” Rogers said, “but I think it kind of leaked back over.”

“That’s the only pitch I really want back,” Skubal said.

The triple to right-center produced the only run the Astros needed. The next nine pitches produced the add-on tallies to put it out of reach. Alvarez connected with a high two-seamer and sent it deep to center for a sacrifice fly.

Once Peña reached for a changeup at the bottom of the zone for another groundout to third, Skubal could breathe. But then Diaz, of the eight-pitch strikeout in the first inning, worked a 2-2 count -- including a 99 mph fastball out of the zone to even the count. Skubal got him to swing at a slider down, but Diaz connected for a 102.6 mph line drive that shortstop Ryan Kreidler could only deflect into left field for a two-out single.

That extended the inning for Mauricio Dubón, who had popped out and grounded out on changeups in his first two at-bats. Skubal went back to it, this time at the bottom of the zone.

“Tip of the cap to him,” Rogers said. “He sat changeup and got changeup, and hit it over the fence. …

“Skube’s human.”

That’s how quickly he became mortal Friday.

“Skubal is one of the best in the game,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “Especially someone like that, you’ve got to stay on him because he’s not going to miss many pitches. And when he does, you have to be ready to hit."