KANSAS CITY — The ace did what an ace does.
When the Tigers needed Tarik Skubal on Sunday to help them take an even more commanding position in their bid for an American League Central title, Skubal came through in grand and convincing fashion. The reigning AL Cy Young Award winner threw seven scoreless innings as Detroit knocked off the Royals, 5-0, to increase its division lead to 9 1/2 games over Kansas City with one month remaining.
Manager A.J. Hinch woke up Sunday morning knowing that at the end of the day his club would either be up 7 1/2 games or 9 1/2 games over Kansas City. The comforting notion in hoping that the two-game swing would go his way revolved around the fact that Skubal would be taking the mound.
Skubal matched Kansas City right-hander Michael Wacha for four scoreless innings before the Tigers’ offense broke through in the fifth. Detroit’s four-run rally was highlighted by catcher Jake Rogers’ two-run triple, on a play in which center fielder Tyler Tolbert got turned around and lost track of the ball.
Skubal then added three more scoreless innings before turning the game over to the Detroit bullpen. The left-hander allowed four hits and now has 11 starts this season when he has given up zero runs in six or more innings. That broke a tie with Denny McLain for the most in franchise history.
“Anytime your name is thrown around with those types of names, especially in Tigers’ history, it’s an honor,” Skubal said.
Skubal, generally a strikeout artist, fanned only four. But he induced soft contact and didn’t go outside the strike zone much because he knew the Royals have improved their chase rate dramatically in recent weeks.
“The game isn’t about striking everybody out,” Skubal said. “Would I love to do that? Yeah, 100 percent. But it’s about getting outs however you can get them. That team doesn’t strike out a ton. Especially in the last month, their strikeout numbers are way down.”
The Royals had a chance to grab an early lead after Maikel Garcia’s leadoff double in the third. Garcia advanced to third on a fly ball to deep left-center by Bobby Witt Jr. but Skubal struck out Vinnie Pasquantino on a 98 mph fastball and then got Salvador Perez on a groundout.
“With a runner at third and less than two outs, you kind of have to strike a guy out to navigate your way to a zero,” Skubal said. “I would have been comfortable with giving up one right there, just because I know our offense can battle back. But to get out of it with a zero felt really good.”
Wacha was incredibly efficient early. He had 29 strikes and just three balls while throwing 32 pitches through three innings. But the Tigers bided their time and then struck in the fifth thanks largely to Rogers’ wind-blown triple.
With runners at first and third and one out, Rogers got the ball into the air for what looked initially like it would result in a sacrifice fly. But when Tolbert took an ill-advised route to the ball, Rogers had his two-run triple. The Tigers added run-scoring hits by Colt Keith and Gleyber Torres later in the inning.
“I was hoping it would get out of the park, but at the very least be a sacrifice fly,” Rogers said. “I put some good wood on it.”
With a four-run lead, Skubal navigated his final three innings by allowing just one hit.
“When you put up a four-spot with [Skubal] on the mound, you feel good,” Hinch said. “He knew this game was going to be won inside the strike zone with sequencing and well-timed pitches. I felt like he was starting to locate pitches better and better as the game wore on.”
By winning two-out-of-three in the weekend series against the second-place team in the division, the Tigers atoned for a rough series in Sacramento when they were swept by the A’s earlier in the week.
“It was good for us to move on and learn from what happened in Sacramento,” Skubal said. “I don’t think we played a good brand of baseball there. We wanted to get back to being the team that we know we are.”
