Skubal harnesses frustrations, prevails in battle of weather in G1 of DH

DETROIT -- Mother Nature stopped Tarik Skubal on Wednesday night. And it nearly derailed him on Thursday afternoon.

As Skubal walked off the Comerica Park mound after the first inning, having stranded the bases loaded, he looked like a pitcher who had just given up a grand slam. He was angry at himself. He was angry at the rainy weather. And ultimately, the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner was angry at some factors that were out of his control, a frustration that threatened to send his outing spiraling out of control.

“I was a little upset with the weather,” Skubal said. “From the third inning on, I felt like it was very manageable, so I just felt like we could have started that game a little bit later. Warming up, it was coming down pretty good, so that’s what I was more frustrated at.”

As he walked off the mound to a standing ovation with two outs in the sixth inning, he wasn’t much happier. He limited the Pirates to two runs in 5 2/3 innings while striking out six in an eventual 9-2 win to begin Thursday’s getaway doubleheader, but he looked like he had left with a deficit. It was a good outing, but not a Skubal outing.

“I don’t think I met the standard of who I think I am today,” he said. “I don’t think I was very good, but we won, so it doesn’t really matter how I feel or what I think. The goal every time out there is to win, and we won today.”

Skubal talks often about not pitching against the opposing starter. He brought that up again after his outing when asked if he had pondered the possibility of pitching against Paul Skenes, who started for the Pirates in Game 2. But in talking about his own outing, Skubal sounded like he was pitching against even tougher competition than Skenes: He was competing against himself.

“The standards for him are so incredibly high,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “When people come to see him pitch, they expect to see something that they’ve never seen before, or some sort of dominant performance. And so, when you give a couple hits up, or you give a couple walks, everybody’s surprised. But that’s baseball. They put up some good at-bats, and they took some singles and drew their walks. They weren’t over aggressive, even though he has the history of throwing strikes.

“But for Tarik, his bar is so high for himself, but also that others bestow on him. And that comes with the territory. When you have hardware and you have top-of-the-rotation notoriety, you’re going to get the high praise and you’re going to get the high standards.”

Though Wednesday’s rainout briefly raised hopes for a Skubal matchup opposite Paul Skenes on Thursday, the matchup didn’t happen. Skubal always prefers to start the first game of a doubleheader, while Skenes has gone in Game 2 in both of his career doubleheader starts -- both at Comerica Park.

Part of Skubal’s preference for Game 1 comes out of his desire to control his routine. He begins his warmup process two hours before his first pitch, which is a lot easier to do for a set start time. He has a better chance at a set time for Game 1, though rain delayed his first pitch for 40 minutes.

Once Skubal started, pitching in a consistent rain, he had to battle. He walked two batters in an inning for the first time since April 2. But he stranded the bases loaded in the first inning and shut down the Pirates offense until Billy Cook singled and scored in the fifth. But he was admittedly frustrated.

“My hat is literally leaking water in front of my face as I’m pitching,” he said. “Why didn’t we just wait? That’s kind of what I’m thinking. And when it’s raining like that, the mound gets ruined. …

“That was frustrating for sure, but you know that their guys are playing in it just like we are. You can’t let it affect you, and I probably did let it impact me a little bit. That’s something I guess I can take away in the future. Just don’t let outside things that you can’t control impact your emotions.”

Two sixth-inning singles and another walk set up a Tommy Pham sacrifice fly to close Skubal’s outing. But by then, the Tigers had a comfortable lead thanks in part to four sacrifice flies, tying their modern franchise mark set on June 10, 1985 and one shy of the Major League record set by the 1988 Mariners and matched twice since.