ARLINGTON -- Tarik Skubal is still in Triple Crown territory and the Tigers are back in the win column after the lefty dominated the Rangers in a 2-1 victory Sunday at Globe Life Field.
After Sunday’s start, Skubal has one piece of the crown in his grasp and the other two are within the slimmest of margins. Skubal’s ERA is at an American League-leading 2.185, one one-hundredth of a run better than Boston’s Garrett Crochet (2.195), who maintains the AL lead in wins (11) and strikeouts (165).
Skubal is just one win and one strikeout behind Crochet. But he’s paying far more attention to his team’s win-loss record than any personal statistic. Sunday, with Skubal’s help, the Tigers snapped a six-game losing streak and held onto the best record in the Majors at 60-40.
“That’s what matters -- we’re the first to 60,” Skubal said. “That matters more than anything that I’m doing individually.”
The Tigers wouldn’t be where they are without Skubal, of course. Sunday was yet another example of what he means to the club.
In his first action since starting the All-Star Game on Tuesday in Atlanta, Skubal struck out 11, amassing 10 of those K’s his first two times through the lineup. The Rangers had two hits -- both by Corey Seager -- by that point. Skubal looked more human in the seventh, allowing a ringing double to Adolis García and a weak single to Kyle Higashioka before recording his final out on a changeup swung at and missed by Jonah Heim.
That eight-pitch at-bat pushed Skubal’s pitch count to 105 -- the second-most pitches he’s thrown in 123 Major League starts -- and manager A.J. Hinch felt compelled to go to the bullpen.
“Those are tough decisions,” Hinch said. “As I told him on the mound, if we’re going anywhere, we’re going with him. I wanted to give him the Heim at-bat, maybe even the at-bat behind him. But the Heim at-bat, he emptied his tank ... it was just time to go get him there.”
Reliever Tyler Holton entered with runners on the corners. He retired the hitter he came in to face, but not before uncorking a wild pitch that allowed a run home from third to tie the game at 1-1.
That play not only cost the Tigers the lead but denied Skubal a chance to match Crochet’s win total. That didn’t seem to bother Skubal after the Tigers retook the lead on Matt Vierling’s RBI single in the top of the eighth.
“I expect every time I go out there to put our team in a position to win, and we were able to do that tonight,” Skubal said.
Relying heavily on a dazzling changeup, which he threw 40 times, Skubal tossed 6 2/3 innings, scattering four hits, walking none and allowing one earned run. He threw the changeup 38.1 percent of the time Sunday; in his previous 19 starts this season, he has used it 31.8 percent of the time.
Skubal is pursuing a second consecutive Triple Crown, a feat last accomplished by Roger Clemens, then with Toronto, in 1997-98. But that talk can wait -- the focus for Detroit is on team wins.
“Wins were hard to come by in the last week, but we’ve been doing pretty well for the better part of four months,” Hinch said. “This team has a lot of confidence, but you always love getaway day wins. Obviously, we needed to salvage a game in this series. Tarik’s on the mound, does an exceptional job, and we did just enough offensively. So we’ll get on a happy flight and get to a new series.”