ARLINGTON — Tarik Skubal is still in Triple Crown territory (leading one’s league in wins, ERA and strikeouts) 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.
The Tigers became the first MLB team to reach 60 wins this year, snapping a season-long six-game losing streak.
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 human in the seventh, allowing a double and a single before recording his final out — fittingly, on a changeup swung at and missed by Jonah Heim.
Relying heavily on that 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 percent of the time Sunday; in his previous 19 starts this season, he had used it 31.8 percent of the time.
After Skubal fanned Heim for the second out of the seventh, his pitch count had swelled to 105, the second-most pitches in any of his 123 Major League starts. Manager A.J. Hinch had to go get Skubal before he could escape the jam, and one of the runners made it home on reliever Tyler Horton’s wild pitch that tied the game at 1-1.
That play not only cost the Tigers the lead but robbed Skubal of a chance to move into a tie for first place in the American League in wins. He is stuck at 10-3 for now, one win behind Boston’s Garrett Crochet. Skubal is also only one strikeout behind Crochet, who leads the league with 165.
Though Skubal trails Crochet by the slimmest of margins in those two Triple Crown categories, the third part of the equation is back in Skubal’s grasp after Sunday, though. He lowered his ERA to 2.185, or about one one-hundredth of a run better than Crochet’s 2.19458.
