Skubal schools White Sox for successful start to 2024

CHICAGO -- Tarik Skubal still remembers making his Major League debut at Guaranteed Rate Field four years ago. Not many other people might remember much from it, because it was in an empty stadium during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.

As he prepared to take the same mound on Thursday afternoon as the Tigers’ first homegrown Opening Day starter since Justin Verlander in 2017, this time with a big crowd including his family in the stands, that memory came to mind.

“It's kind of full circle,” Skubal said.

In the end, the circle many will take out of Detroit’s season-opening win will be the goose egg they put on the White Sox. In fact, it’ll go down in history. Never had the Tigers, one of the American League’s original franchises in 1901, opened a season with a 1-0 win. Until now.

They’ve seen plenty on Opening Day over the years, from Miguel Cabrera’s homer through the snow a few years ago to Dmitri Young’s three homers in the unseasonable Michigan sun to Christin Stewart’s extra-inning homer through the controlled climate of Toronto’s Rogers Centre in 2019. But they’ve arguably never seen gas like this.

An afternoon that began with Skubal firing fastballs in the upper 90s, topping out at 98.9 mph, ended with Jason Foley unleashing back-to-back 101-mph sinkers to fan Luis Robert Jr. At no point in between did a Tigers pitcher allow a White Sox runner to get in scoring position.

“That was the goal, always: 1-0 [record], no matter how it happens,” Skubal said. “It just so happened that it was a 1-0 game. Our bullpen was awesome. They did everything they needed to do, and we scored enough runs to win. That's what matters.”

The path to 1-0 was not only formed by how manager A.J. Hinch constructed the lineup, but it also unfolded as president of baseball operations Scott Harris described what the Tigers’ plan for success would be on the first day of Spring Training.

“We should expect these young hitters to struggle at times,” Harris said in mid-February. “We should be expecting the offense to sputter at times. So we tried to build a dynamic pitching staff around them to keep games close.”

Nobody on Detroit’s staff is as dynamic right now as Skubal, who backed up his preseason hype as a darkhorse American League Cy Young candidate with six strikeouts over six scoreless innings.

After allowing a lone run in 23 innings over his final four starts to earn AL Pitcher of the Month honors for September/October, he picked up where he left off, holding Chicago’s retooled lineup to three singles.

The White Sox looked to attack Skubal’s power fastball rather than let him get ahead and set up his secondary pitches. Skubal thrived off that, getting no called strikes off his heater, but 11 swings and misses. His fastball averaged 96.7 mph, up nearly a full mph from his 2023 average according to Statcast.

Skubal admitted being nervous as he made his way to the field before the game, then again when he took the mound for the bottom of the first. Once he settled in, he retired his final eight batters, and 15 of his last 16.

“It's Opening Day, so no matter how much we try to downplay it, guys just get a little bit too much adrenaline,” Hinch said. “He wasn't really spinning the ball early, but the changeup started to come a little bit, the power on his fastball started to come. And then you see the head nod and you see his sort-of mojo moxie come out.

“You can tell he's starting to get into it, he's starting to feel a little bit better, and it's like any other game. Big start for our team, big start for him. Couldn't ask for much more.”

The Tigers didn’t fare much better against White Sox lefty Garrett Crochet, who scattered five singles over six innings with eight strikeouts in his first Major League start. But Javier Báez led off the third inning with a single, stole second, moved to third on a Parker Meadows groundout and scored on an Andy Ibáñez sacrifice fly.

“He knows what he's got, and he really worked hard for it,” Báez said of Skubal. “I think he can win a Cy Young if he's got a good plan, which we do. I think if he controls 0-2 and two strikes, he's going to be really, really good.”