KANSAS CITY -- Hours before Matt Manning's last start at Triple-A Toledo, where he was trying to lower a 9.23 ERA and reinforce his standing as Detroit's top pitching prospect, he looked to talk to a Major Leaguer to calm his mind. He looked toTarik Skubal.

They were teammates at Double-A Erie, Spring Training, Summer Camp and the alternate training site before Skubal was called up to the Tigers last summer. Even though they were at different levels this season, they’re neighbors in Detroit. Somehow, they’d lost touch.

“I hadn’t seen Skubal in like two months,” Manning said on Tuesday, a day before Skubal pitched six quality innings in the Tigers’ 6-5 win over the Royals at Kauffman Stadium. “And for some reason, I called him and we just talked for like two hours about baseball and everything. And it just calmed me down. …

“We just kind of talked about what’s going on. Seeing a familiar face and a guy you like puts you at ease of mind and comfortable and got me where I needed to be.”

So did they talk about pitching strategies? Attacking hitters? Overcoming big hits?

“Actually, he was walking his dog, and he wanted our dogs to meet,” Skubal said. “He Facetimed me and I was like, ‘Yeah, come over, just hang out.’ I didn’t even know he was pitching that day. And then we started talking about baseball and life, and our dogs or whatever.

"It was good to see him just as much as he says it was good to see me. I know the numbers, what’s going on, just being able to talk about things like that.”

Whatever the talk, it didn’t hurt. Manning turned in six strong innings that night in a win that served as a springboard for his promotion this week. And as Skubal recovered from two early home runs, he provided an example Manning could take into his Major League debut on Thursday night at Angel Stadium.

Skubal kept the Tigers close enough to rally when Willi Castro’s two-run homer fueled a go-ahead three-run seventh inning off old nemesis Greg Holland. The win completed the Tigers’ first three-game series sweep in Kansas City since May 2014, when starters Justin Verlander, Rick Porcello and Drew Smyly all picked up victories as part of an eight-game winning streak.

This time, Skubal and fellow rookie Casey Mize -- rookies that manager A.J. Hinch initially didn’t pitch back-to-back to avoid taxing the bullpen -- tossed quality starts and earned wins after Detroit used nine pitchers to take the opener.

“They’re growing up fast, aren’t they,” Hinch joked. “Just like my kids. They’re doing a great job of growing up in the big leagues and taking the responsibility and going with it. They don’t want to believe that they have to ever come out of the game.”

Like Manning in Toledo, Skubal struggled with home runs early in the season. Adalberto Mondesi’s second-inning solo homer and Salvador Perez’s two-run drive in the third marked Skubal’s first multi-homer outing since May 7. Both were good pitch selections, but in bad locations -- a fastball down the middle to Mondesi, a first-pitch changeup in the zone to Perez.

Manning can relate, having allowed 11 homers over 32 1/3 innings in Toledo, including eight over his first three starts. Manning battled walks for a few starts after that.

Just as Skubal seemed on the precipice of a fallback outing, walking Jorge Soler after Perez’s 17th homer of the season, he yielded two hits over his final 3 1/3 innings. Skubal attacked the strike zone, getting Mondesi to swing and miss on a changeup before fouling off a high fastball to fall into an 0-2 count. After taking back-to-back pitches out of the zone, Mondesi finally swung at a 2-2 sinker for a ground ball to end the inning.

Skubal drew swings and misses on 16 of his 91 pitches, nearly as many as the Royals put in play. He fanned three consecutive batters at the top of the Royals’ lineup, and seven batters for the game. Kansas City hitters whiffed on four of his nine sliders, took two more for strikes and didn’t put any in play.

“He can get guys out in a lot of different ways,” Hinch said. “I don’t think he’s intimidated by anybody.”

Nor, apparently, are his dogs, a Yorkie and a Maltese Yorkie.

“My dogs are pretty stuck-up, honestly,” Skubal said. “I don’t know where they get that from, either. I’m not proud of that part of them. But yeah, they got along just fine.”