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DETROIT — A montage the Tigers prepared to honor Tarik Skubal’s time in Detroit was unveiled before the first pitch on Friday, catching their former ace at an inopportune time.
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Skubal had just completed his pregame warmup in Comerica Park’s left-center field bullpen. The video aired on the giant scoreboard beyond the left-field stands as he made the long walk back to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ first-base dugout, and Skubal couldn’t help but look back to watch it. By the time he crossed the right-field line, tears were being shed.
His desire to treat this like any other start was over before it began.
“I’ve come to figure out I don’t really know myself that well,” Skubal said.
(Circle) Skubal reacts walking to the dugout prior to game. | Dodgers pitcher Tarik Skubal throws against the Tigers during the fourth inning. Aug. 28, 2026, in Detroit.
(GREGORY SHAMUS/ GETTY IMAGES) | (AP PHOTO/ PAUL SANCYA)
By the end, though, Skubal had operated predictably, throwing six innings of one-run ball while helping the Dodgers snap a three-game losing streak with a nail-biting 2-1 victory. Skubal threw a combined 215 pitches over his last two starts, a development that surprised Tigers officials who hadn’t seen him reach triple digits all season. On this night, however, he was cut off at 83. The Tigers were starting to make hard contact, and emotions were still running high.
“He wanted to stay in, and I love that, I respect that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “He felt he had some more in there, but I had my thoughts.”
Eight years ago, the Tigers took a chance on Skubal by drafting him in the ninth round out of Seattle University. They watched him develop into arguably the world’s best pitcher, one who captured the American League Cy Young Award in 2024 and 2025, and went into his final season before free agency with the hope of keeping him all year. But a 6-22 record in May doomed them. A resurgent June and July wasn’t enough to persuade the front office to keep him.
On Aug. 1, in the middle of a Saturday game in Sacramento, the Tigers traded Skubal to the Dodgers for a prospect-laden package headlined by outfielder Zyhir Hope and right-hander River Ryan. Twenty-seven days later, he was back in a different uniform. Tigers manager A.J. Hinch called it “completely foreign” and “weird.”
When Skubal took the mound, there was applause but also some boos from an announced crowd of 41,012, though the latter could also have been a nod to his nickname.
Skubal prefers to see it that way.
“With the last name ‘Skub,’ you don’t know if they are boos or if they’re cheering for you,” he said. “So I’m gonna assume they were cheering for me. That’s all I really got on that.”
Skubal allowed a leadoff double to Tigers second baseman Gleyber Torres, then retired 12 consecutive batters, six via strikeout, while relying heavily on his changeup. The Tigers began the fifth inning with a double from Eduardo Valencia. Three batters later, heralded rookie center fielder Max Clark waited on a 99 mph fastball and poked it down a vacant third-base line for a triple, scoring the game’s first run. But the Dodgers, fresh off getting swept by the Atlanta Braves, battled back, getting a pinch-hit RBI single from Miguel Rojas in the sixth and a two-out RBI single from Freddie Freeman in the eighth.
“We won,” Skubal said, “and that’s what matters to me.”
Clayton Kershaw, another ace left-hander who wore a Dodgers uniform, was famous for being borderline standoffish during his starts. On days when he took the mound, nobody approached him. Skubal, Freeman noted, is the opposite. He is exceedingly chatty between innings on his start days, a trait that surprised his new teammates. That remained the case on the most emotional night of his professional life.
“He was talking to everybody,” Freeman said. “I think he embraced it. He left everything he had for this organization, multiple Cy Youngs — he left it all for them. I think that’s why he got so many cheers. I’m sure during the game they weren’t too thrilled with all the strikeouts he was racking up, but it’s hard to boo a man who gave you everything he had every five days.”
Skubal is now 8-7 with a 2.84 ERA in a 2026 season that was briefly interrupted by surgery to remove loose bodies from his elbow. In five starts with the Dodgers, he has completed at least six innings and allowed no more than three runs on four occasions. But there’s a thought that he hasn’t fully settled in yet.
Two of those starts were his first with the Dodgers, from a hostile Wrigley Field, and his Dodger Stadium debut. On Friday, it was his return to the only place he has ever known as a big leaguer. Now that it’s behind him, the hope is that he can settle in for the stretch run.
“There was a lot of heavy heart, emotions,” Roberts said, “so I think this was the last box he had to check.”
Skubal nodded over to the Tigers’ dugout several times during that initial walk back from the bullpen and caught up with some of his former teammates on the field after the game. In between, he believes he “did a good job of keeping baseball baseball.”
To a certain extent.
“Obviously, it was different,” Skubal said. “Just coming here and staying at a hotel is weird. But I think it was good. It was good all around. These games are special. I have a lot of good memories on that field.”
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