'Dominant' Tarik Skubal dazzles again as Tigers take series from Royals
Chris McCosky
Detroit — You start running out of ways to describe Tarik Skubal’s dominance.
Here's how his catcher put it: "He's good. He's been good. Hopefully he stays good."
Jake Rogers, succinct and on-point.
Skubal gave up a double and single to the first two batters of the game and then proceeded to disassemble a red-hot lineup over seven innings helping the Tigers take the series against the Central Division rival Kansas City Royals, 4-1, Sunday at Comerica Park.
"Just his consistency," manager AJ Hinch said of Skubal. "Really, from the beginning of the game. A seeing-eye double and a two-strike base hit by Bobby Witt, Jr., and then he locked in and was very efficient the rest of the way. We got the lead back in the bottom of the inning and it looked like he hit another gear.
"That's what the big boys do, the guys you expect to anchor a staff. He showed it. He was dominant."
Skubal is now 4-0 on the year, lowering his ERA to 1.72 and his league-low WHIP to 0.74.
The run was set up by a slow bouncer by leadoff hitter Maikel Garcia that eluded third baseman Matt Vierling and rolled into the left-field corner. Witt, Jr., followed, dropping a 1-2 changeup into center for an RBI single.
"Was that pitch out of the box?" Skubal said. "I didn't look at it. It was out of the box? OK, then good pitch."
Skubal then ripped off 14 straight outs. The Royals mustered only two more hits and a walk off him after the first inning.
"They are a group that swings early and often," Skubal said. "So there was more emphasis on pitching in and off the plate. Not even throwing strikes. Get them to take the first pitch. That way they can't ambush the second pitch. I felt like I did a good job of that and Rog has such a great feel back there."
Rogers also caught Casey Mize and Reese Olson in the first two games of the series. He watched the Royals' hitters attack fastballs and lean out over the plate and flip secondary pitches to the opposite field. It was imperative for Skubal to establish himself on the inner part of the plate.
Which he did with four-seam (97 mph average velocity) and two-seam fastballs (96 mph).
"Tarik did a real nice job of throwing in," Rogers said. "It was important to get in on those guys. They start diving out and getting comfortable on the outside. ...They are a super-aggressive team, which can be bad but also it can be good. Quick outs."
Skubal had a 12-pitch second inning and back-to-back eight-pitch innings in the third and fourth. Lots of quick outs. And that was about the time he found the feel for his changeup. Once he had that pitch, the Royals seemed overmatched.
"I just started throwing some better ones and they started missing them," Skubal said. "They were putting them in play early. Bobby Witt got that RBI single. Then they started swinging and missing and I started locating that pitch a little better."
In the sixth inning, Skubal punched out Garcia, throwing him three straight changeups. Then, he went to battle against Witt. He started him off slow, with a knuckle-curve and a changeup. But with the count to 2-1, Skubal went mano a mano. He threw him three straight four-seam fastballs — 96 mph, foul; 97 mph, foul, 99 mph — strike three swinging.
"The first at-bat," Skubal said when asked what led him to staying with the heater. "No matter what happens, if he's doing a good job staying in there against the changeup, I don't want to give up another hit. So you have to flip the script like that."
In the seventh inning he threw six straight changeups. Two straight to strike out Nelson Velazquez and then four straight to punch out Freddy Fermin.
Skubal, who finished with six strikeouts, got 11 whiffs on 20 swings at his changeup.
"These guys (the Royals), they don't swing-and-miss a ton and it's hard to get strikeouts," Hinch said. "You can't chase strikeouts. You have to mix your pitches. Center-cut fastballs, no matter who's throwing, is a tough matchup against these guys. They put balls in play and they can hit.
"So Skubal's mix was important, whether it was the changeup, he threw a few sliders, a few curveballs. And that made his fastball better. If you can make Tarik Skubal's fastball better, that's the way to do it. It was an impressive outing by an impressive competitor."
Shelby Miller pitched a clean eighth inning and Jason Foley, for the second straight game, ran into a spot of bother in the ninth before earning his ninth save.
Like Saturday night, the first two Royals hitters reached — walk to Salvador Perez and single by pinch-hitter Michael Massey. But Foley got Vinnie Pasquantino to ground out to first, and struck out MJ Melendez and Dairon Blanco.
"He's unflappable, whether he does well the night before or he struggled," Hinch said of Foley. "He's got turbo stuff. It was really easy for me to give him the ball again."
Rookie outfielder Wenceel Perez nullified the Royals' lone run by launching his first big-league home run, a two-run shot, in the bottom of the first inning. He stayed back on a 1-0 changeup that Royals starter Michael Wacha left up and over the plate.
Perez, who flew out to the base of the wall in right field Saturday, put it in orbit, a towering fly ball that easily cleared the wall in right field.
"It feels great," said Perez, who also singled and made a terrific running catch in deep right-center, taking an extra base hit away from Salvador Perez. "Yesterday I was just a little bit out front on a changeup. Today I got it. I did a couple of pushups and I think it worked."
A young fan in right field got the home run ball and exchanged it with Perez for another ball, autographed by Perez.
"It was his first Tigers game and my first home run as a Tiger," Perez said.
The Tigers scratched across another run in the third on a sacrifice fly by Riley Greene. Rogers singled and went to third on an opposite-field double to left by Parker Meadows.
Rogers finished Wacha’s outing with a two-out, opposite-field home run to right-center in the sixth.
"The last couple of weeks I've been swinging at good pitches and taking balls," Rogers said. "Starting to get a couple more barrels, which, it was getting kind of rough early. Just keep swinging. I changed a couple of things, got more aggressive — change the mentality a little bit and just, let's go."
Hinch doesn't like for pitchers to have personal catchers, but he'd be hard-pressed to split up Rogers and Skubal right now. They've worked in perfect harmony the last two seasons, since Skubal got back from flexor-tendon surgery. Rogers said Skubal only shook off one sign Sunday.
"I didn't shake him at all," Skubal said.
Then, after he was told that Rogers said he did, "Oh, yeah, I did. I wanted to go a slider (laughing). I will take credit for that one pitch I actually thought about."
This is the first time the Tigers won back-to-back home games this season.
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky