Skubal, Báez start Tigers on right foot with season-opening shutout

Chicago — The Tigers started the 2024 season with a brilliantly pitched, flawlessly defended 1-0 win over the White Sox on a clear but crisp (50 degrees) late afternoon at Guaranteed Rate Field on Thursday. It was historic, too. The first time in club annals they'd won an Opening Day game 1-0.

Lefty started Tarik Skubal and the bullpen deserve the biggest bouquets for this one, but leave it to Javier Báez, the scourge of the Southside, to bring the fire.

"They don't learn," Báez said.

He’d been getting booed since he stepped onto the field, which is the norm here ever since Báez helped the Cubs win the World Series in 2016. But he poured some gas on those flames at the end of the second inning.

After he caught a shallow pop fly to end the inning, he fired the baseball, head-level, into the crowd down the third base line.

He knew there was netting in front protecting them. Still, it raised the fans’ ire to another level. Which Báez seems to feed on.

"I always have fun with everybody yelling at me," he said. "I should've tried to throw it a little higher. I did try to throw it to the net. They were yelling good stuff and not so good stuff. But it's always fun to compete against real fans that really care about this."

Báez then singled to lead off the third inning, stole second and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by Andy Ibanez.

"It's like my kids," Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. "The (White Sox) fans start it and Javy just keeps pestering back at them. He's fun and he's into it. Obviously, he has a long history in this city. They go at him and he goes right back at them. That brings a lot of adrenalin for him and it does get the juices going.

"Javy, 1-0."

Báez had a pretty good explanation for why he seems to thrive when he's cast as the villain in these hostile environments.

BOX SCORE: Tigers 1, White Sox 0

"It's more about concentration and competing," he said. "When you get booed you don't want to suck because they're going to boo louder."

That one skinny run held up because Skubal was dominant for six innings and three Tigers' relievers, Shelby Miller, Andrew Chafin and Jason Foley, dispatched the last nine hitters in a row.

"Woo," Báez said when asked about Skubal's performance. "Everyone who came in did a great job. But he knows what he's got and he really works hard for it. I think he can win a Cy Young if he's got a good plan, which he does."

Skubal, making the first Opening Day start of his young career, allowed just three singles and not a single runner past first base. He struck out six.

"On the way to the field today I got pretty nervous," he said. "Like on the walk in. But it went away and when I went out for the first, I was pretty nervous. It was kind of a full-circle thing. I debuted here (in 2020) with no fans. To come back and be able to start Opening Day kind of makes up for that in a way. It was awesome."

Facing seven right-handed hitters in the starting lineup, Skubal attacked with high-velocity four-seam and two-seam fastballs, using his changeup as his primary secondary pitch. He got a total of 20 swings and misses on 49 swings, 11 of those with his four-seamer, which averaged 96.7 mph and hit 99.

The White Sox hitters had a chase rate of 39.5%.

He also had Riley Greene out in left field taking away hits from the White Sox. Greene, who ended his season making a diving catch in this ballpark last season, stole a single from Kevin Pillar leading off the fifth.

"I told him in the dugout, 'This field ended your season last year and you just made a helluva play,'" Skubal said. "He played with no fear and that's awesome. One of the hardest things to do when you come back from injury is play with no fear."

Greene made five putouts in left field.

"The way Tarik contained his nerves and energy was impressive," Hinch said. "It's cold, he wasn't sweating and the grips were different (with dry hands). It's Opening Day. No matter how much we try to downplay it, guys get a little too much adrenalin."

He struggled a little bit early with his command, though he didn't walk anybody, but by the third inning he was dialed in.

"You started to see the head nod," Hinch said. "You started to see his mojo-moxie come out and you can tell he's starting to get into it and starting to feel better and then it's like any other game. It was a big start for our team and a big start for him.

"We couldn't have asked for more."

Hinch first called on veteran right-hander Miller to face the middle of the White Sox order in the seventh. Clean inning, thanks to a superb running catch by Greene and a third-strike pitch clock violation against Andrew Vaughn.

"Went with Miller because, obviously, it was a different look," Hinch said. "It's a different fastball and he's going to be able to spin it if we need it."

Lefty Chafin breezed through the bottom of the order in the eighth and with left-handed hitting Andrew Benintendi leading off the ninth, Hinch kept him in for one more out. Which he got.

That left the last two outs, against arguably the best two hitters in the White Sox order, to right-hander Foley. And he was nasty. He struck out Yoan Moncada, a switch-hitter hitting left-handed, with a 100-mph sinker and then, hitting 101 with the sinker, he blew away Luis Robert, Jr.

"Moncada hadn't hit left-handed the whole game," Hinch said. "And it's 100 mph coming at you with different angles. But the key to the inning was Chafin getting Benintendi out and giving Foley a clean entry into the game."

Hinch, just like last year, isn't likely to name a closer. Miller, Chafin, Foley, Alex Lange, Will Vest and Tyler Holton are all in the mix to work any inning after the fifth when the Tigers have the lead.

"The goal was to be 1-0, no matter how it happened," Skubal said. "It just so happened it was 1-0 and our bullpen was awesome. We did everything we needed to do and we scored enough runs to win."

As for Báez, who hit the ball hard two more times with nothing to show, took the boos as a compliment. After all, they don't boo nobodys.

"We hear a lot of boos but there's a lot of people who support me, too," he said. "From both sides, White Sox and Cubs. It doesn't make me mad, but I feel like it makes me focus."

Chris.McCosky@detroitnews.com

@cmccosky