How Tarik Skubal tackled Phillies to help Detroit Tigers beat ERA leader Ranger Suárez

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.

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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.”

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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.”

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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.

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