Detroit Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal didn’t hit the panic button after one bad start.

It’s another sign of a true ace.

Skubal, the frontrunner to win the American League Cy Young Award, allowed five runs (four earned runs) across four innings in last Wednesday’s 7-0 loss to the Atlanta Braves. In his return to the mound Tuesday, he tossed seven scoreless innings with seven strikeouts in the 4-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies.

BEAST MODE: How Tigers’ Tarik Skubal matured into an Opening Day ace with Cy Young potential

What was the biggest difference in back-to-back starts against two of the best four teams in the National League?

“Just stay consistent and continue to go about my work and focus on executing pitches,” said Skubal, who allowed three hits and one walk to the Phillies. “I don’t think I did a good job of that in my last time out, but I did a much better job with that today.”

The matchup between the Tigers and Phillies on Tuesday featured the best left-handed pitchers in baseball — Skubal for the Tigers, Ranger Suárez for the Phillies — on the mound at Comerica Park. Facing Suárez, the Tigers scored four runs with five singles in the fifth inning, whereas the Phillies never scored against Skubal.

Suárez ranks first in MLB with a 2.01 ERA in 16 starts; Skubal ranks fourth in MLB with a 2.32 ERA in 16 starts, posting 19 walks and 112 strikeouts across 97 innings.

“You know runs are going to be at a premium,” Skubal said of Suárez. “It’s not going to change my approach, but you just know that going in. I’m going to pitch the same game and put my team in a position to win. It took five innings for us to break through, and we finally did in a big way.”

NEWSLETTER: How Tarik Skubal stacks up vs. AL Cy Young winners

To take down the Phillies, Skubal used his pitch mix creatively as catcher Jake Rogers called pitches.

“Same ol’ Skub to me,” Rogers said. “He was dominant. He kept the hitters off balance. That’s a good lineup to go through. Tip of the cap to him.”

The Phillies like to swing at the first pitch, just like the Braves, but Skubal continued to throw first-pitch strikes at an elite rate. (He ranks third in MLB with a 72.1% first-pitch strike rate.) This time, Skubal stayed unpredictable with his first-pitch offerings so the Phillies couldn’t ambush him early in counts.

Entering Tuesday’s start, Skubal averaged 52.4% fastballs — either his four-seamer or sinker — on the first pitch through his first four starts in June, but the first-pitch strategy wasn’t the same in his fifth start of the month.

He threw fastballs for 12 of 23 first pitches (52.2%) to the Braves, but one start later, Skubal threw fastballs for just 10 of his 26 first pitches (38.5%) to the Phillies.

“Coming out, I noticed that they were kind of late on heaters,” Rogers said, “so I figured we’d stay with (fastball) for the first pitch to get ahead. Second time through, they were getting behind in counts and getting 0-2, and no hitter really wants to be 0-2, so I knew after that, they were going to be a little bit more aggressive, so we went more soft (changeups, sliders) early and got some weak contact.”

BUDDIES: Tarik Skubal and Jake Rogers: Friends, crossword puzzle enthusiasts, batterymates

Five of the 10 first-pitch fastballs were in the first and second innings, but Skubal didn’t throw any first-pitch fastballs in the third and fourth innings. He threw the remaining five first-pitch fastballs in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings.

It was a masterclass in pitch-calling from Rogers.

“He’s the one pressing the buttons,” Skubal said of Rogers. “Hats off to him. He does a great job back there. I think he’s pretty creative. He knows hitters. He knows what guys are doing, tendencies, how they look in the box. My job is to go out there and execute what he calls.”

Of Skubal’s seven strikeouts, he utilized finish fastballs to end four of those plate appearances. He got his other three strikeouts with two changeups and one curveball.

As for the fastballs, Skubal froze Nick Castellanos with a down-and-in 99.5 mph sinker, blew away Cristian Pache with an elevated 98.2 mph four-seamer, whiffed Kyle Schwarber with an up-and-away 100.7 mph four-seamer and froze Pache with a down-and-away 98.4 mph four-seamer.

The strikeout to Pache ended Skubal’s seven-inning masterpiece.

He flexed and screamed after his final out.

He was fired up.

Skubal bounced back from a bad start by flummoxing the Phillies — owners of the NL’s best record — with a creative pitch mix. More importantly, he put the Tigers in position to win against the NL’s best pitcher.

Just like a true ace is supposed to do.

“I think it’s just part of the daily grind of the big leagues,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “You’re going to run into some teams that have a good approach or have good success. He’s entitled to have a bad day, which is what he had in Atlanta. I don’t think there was a ton different. He’s a dude. Guys in big moments find a way.”

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

Listen to our weekly Tigers show “Days of Roar” every Monday afternoon on demand at freep.com, Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. And catch all of our podcasts and daily voice briefing at freep.com/podcasts.

The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Texas Rangers 3-1 on Tuesday night as pitcher Bryse Wilson joined a Hall of Famer in some rare baseball history.

Per @OptaSTATS on social media:

Last 2 relief outings for the ‘ Bryse Wilson:

June 15 vs. Cin: 5.1 IP, 0 R, W
Tonight vs. Tex: 6.0 IP, 0 R, W

He’s the first MLB pitcher to toss 5.0+ shutout innings and earn the win in consecutive relief appearances since Dennis Eckersley did it from June 6-10, 1987.

Wilson came in in relief of opener Hoby Milner to surrender just three hits and no walks while striking out four. In getting the win, he’s now 5-3 with a 3.89 ERA. His contributions have been incredibly valuable given that the Brewers have lost starters Brandon Woodruff, Wade Miley and Robert Gasser to injury for the season. They just acquired former Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel on Tuesday in a mini trade with the Seattle Mariners.

In his seventh major league season with the Atlanta Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Brewers, he’s 20-20 lifetime with a 4.63 ERA.

The Brewers are one of the best stories in baseball, sitting at 47-33 right now through 80 games of the season. The World Champion Rangers are now 37-42 on the year and sit 6.5 games behind the Seattle Mariners in the American League West.

The two teams will play an afternoon contest on Wednesday with first pitch coming at 2:10 p.m. ET.

Nathan Eovaldi will pitch for Texas while the Brewers haven’t announced a starter as of this posting.

Continue to follow our Fastball on FanNation coverage on social media by liking us on Facebook and by following us on Twitter @FastballFN.

It’s safe to predict no other flautist’s tour will garner as much attention as the one just announced for Northrop Auditorium in October. That’s probably not saying a lot, though.

One of hip-hop’s most beloved hitmakers, André 3000 of OutKast, will bring his New Blue Sun Live tour to the University of Minnesota’s performance hall on Oct. 19. The show will showcase the rapper’s much-publicized conversion to new age-y flute music.

Per the promotional materials for the tour: “New Blue Sun Live is more than a concert; it’s a sonic odyssey that leaves fans both enchanted and reflective; reaffirming André 3000′s status as a visionary in contemporary music.”

Known for the enduring, Polaroid-shaking 2003 megahit “Hey Ya!” as well as other infectious OutKast gems like “Ms. Jackson” and “B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad),” André Benjamin has not performed in the Twin Cities in over two decades.

He and his childhood pal Big Boi skipped Minnesota on their last OutKast tour in 2014 and have been on hiatus since then. Big Boi has continued to regularly record and perform as a rapper, including a headlining appearance last summer at Taste of Minnesota. André, however, has mostly pursued acting, including a co-starring role alongside Will Ferrell in “Semi-Pro” and a lead role as Jimi Hendrix in the film “Jimi: All is By My Side.”

For the Northrop show, the 49-year-old Atlanta native will be joined by his “New Blue Sun” co-producer Carlos Niño and three other musicians playing tunes from the spacey and mellow collection. They’ve been playing tunes off the record — and nothing more — in concert since March, including such rolling-off-the-tongue titles as “That Night in Hawaii When I Turned into a Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn’t Control … [Expletive] Was Wild” and “I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time.”

Tickets for the Northrop show go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. via tickets.umn.edu, priced $50-$230. Options for seats include a VIP package with a pre-show Q&A.