CLEVELAND — Tarik Skubal would not be denied this time.
In one of the best pitched postseason games in the 125-year history of the Detroit Tigers, the supremely talented 28-year-old southpaw recorded 23 of the 27 outs required — including 14 via strikeout — to secure a 2-1 Game 1 victory and a 1-0 lead over the Cleveland Guardians in the best-of-three wild-card series.
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As if Skubal’s case as the best pitcher on the planet weren’t already convincing enough, Tuesday’s showing provided even more emphatic evidence.
One week earlier in the same ballpark, a preposterous half-inning of chaos unfolded around Skubal, and his Tigers were on the wrong end of the equation. Without a ball leaving the infield, the rival Guardians conjured three runs to seize the lead and eventually the game, a pivotal victory en route to one of the most unlikely division titles ever. For Detroit, it was the latest unsightly sequence in a second-half collapse that ultimately ceded the AL Central to Cleveland.
But the Tigers still managed to secure a spot in the postseason field and, as fate would have it, an immediate rivalry rematch, with Cleveland and Detroit squaring off in the wild-card round, offering Skubal and the Tigers a golden chance at redemption. When Skubal arrived at Progressive Field on Tuesday ahead of Game 1, his catcher, Dillon Dingler, could tell that Detroit’s ace understood the assignment.
“Most guys that are pitching that day are a little bit more intense, a little bit more focused in,” Dingler said. “But Tarik has the ability to be the same person, joke around like he would usually be — and then lock it in.”
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Ahead of his final regular-season start in Cleveland the week prior, Skubal appeared unbothered by the stakes of the contest. He navigated a crossword puzzle alongside some teammates. He laughed as he watched Dingler and fellow catcher Jake Rogers enjoy a game of ping-pong. He exuded the comfort and confidence that Dingler described.
Tuesday was different.
Said Dingler: “I feel like [today] he was all business.”
Afforded a one-run lead in the top of the first inning, Skubal took the mound and went to work. It was his third time facing the Guardians in the span of three weeks, offering the possibility that Cleveland’s bats could benefit from the familiarity. But Cleveland’s offense — which ranked 29th in OPS (.670) this season and harbors the lowest batting average (.226) of any team to ever qualify for the postseason — was objectively undermanned.
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Although its flexible roster allowed the team to slot in seven right-handed hitters vs. the lefty Skubal, with six lefty bench bats to deploy in the later innings, Cleveland’s position-player group beyond José Ramírez and Steven Kwan is notably thin on proven track records. And facing a pitcher of Skubal’s caliber at the peak of his powers, the Guardians were flatly overwhelmed.
Over the course of 107 pitches, Skubal dominated to an outlandish degree, even by his own spectacularly high standards. His 14 strikeouts not only marked a personal career high but also tied a Tigers franchise record held by Joe Coleman, who struck out 14 in a shutout of the A’s in the 1972 ALCS.
“He’s been incredible for us all season, but what a performance at the biggest moments in the biggest stage to get us in a great position to win the game,” manager A.J. Hinch said postgame.
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“His stuff — he had everything,” opposing manager Stephen Vogt marveled. “The fastball is up around 101. He was hitting his spots. The changeup had a ton of depth. He was landing the slider. That’s what big-time pitchers do.”
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A four-seam fastball that averaged 97.6 mph during the regular season averaged 99.1 mph in this game. Skubal ran the heater up to 101.2 mph — a new career high in the postseason — on his 96th pitch to strike out the side in the seventh inning.
“Everything ticks up with the velocity being up. I know 100 [mph] impresses people, and I know his presence on the mound is intimidating,” Hinch said. “But he doesn’t just reach back and fire it at 100 mph. He’s a pitcher. And it’s moments like that where he has the sliders or changeups or slow curveballs and then the front-door two-seamers — he’s a beast. And it’s why he’s considered by many as the best pitcher in the big leagues.”
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In total, Skubal coaxed 26 whiffs — six on four-seamers, four on sinkers, three on sliders, one on a curveball and a whopping dozen on the changeup — the fourth-most in a postseason game in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008).
For the most part, Skubal was in complete control through his 7⅔ innings. But if we’ve learned anything from this midwest rivalry over the past year, it’s to expect the unexpected and prepare for the improbable. And Game 1 featured several moments when it seemed like Cleveland might pull yet another rabbit out of the hat to claim its latest stunning victory.
Things started to get weird in the fourth inning. Leading off against Skubal, Angel Martínez fouled a ball directly back behind home plate and shattered a camera hanging on the backstop, causing a delay while glass was cleaned up. Once that at-bat finally resumed, Martinez lunged at a Skubal changeup way off the plate and chopped the ball weakly to an unplayable spot on the right side of the infield grass, reaching first safely. Ramirez followed with a walk, moving Martínez into scoring position with zero outs.
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Consecutive strikeouts of Johnathan Rodríguez and Kyle Manzardo hinted that Skubal was on his way to emerging from the inning unscathed, but then, sure enough, “Guards Ball” resurfaced right on cue. Gabriel Arias chopped a ball over Skubal’s head, which Skubal turned around and managed to field himself. As he gathered the ball while moving toward second base, Martínez raced toward home plate in hopes of stealing an unlikely run.
Skubal made an accurate throw home, Dingler snapped the tag down, and home plate umpire Shane Livensparger initially ruled Martínez out, but a successful Guardians challenge overturned the call once replay made it clear that Martínez’s hand had touched home before he was tagged. With that, the Guardians had once again summoned a run against Skubal in unthinkable fashion. The game was tied 1-1.
“I was kind of at a loss for words because they just scratch and claw and come at you,” Hinch said afterward of Cleveland’s latest feat of bizarre run production. “Crazy stuff happens around the Guardians when you play them because they play their 27 outs. They compete.”
While Skubal was cruising, Guardians starter Gavin Williams was mostly matching zeroes with the Tigers’ ace for the second showdown in a row (Williams shined with a career-high 12 strikeouts a week ago). But Williams faltered to open the seventh inning, surrendering a leadoff double to Riley Greene and opening the door for Detroit to reclaim the lead. Wenceel Pérez followed with a hard grounder that clanged off first baseman Jhonkensy Noel’s glove. Second baseman Brayan Rocchio was able to recover the ball in time to make a competitive throw, but Noel was unable to find his footing at the bag in time to receive the throw, allowing Pérez to reach and give the Tigers runners on the corners with zero outs.
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After reliever Hunter Gaddis entered and struck out Dingler for the first out, the Tigers decided to play a little small ball of their own. On the first pitch from Gaddis, Zach McKinstry dropped a sacrifice bunt down the first-base line, allowing Greene to race home from third, completing the safety squeeze with ease. It was a rare strategy for the Tigers, who have recorded only nine sacrifice bunts over the past two regular seasons, the fewest in MLB over that span. But Hinch identified this ultra-tight game as the time to change things up.
“These games are so crazy, and there’s so few opportunities,” he said postgame. “Today, just given where their pitching was at … it’s just good pitcher after good pitcher, where one run was going to be a big deal.”
Indeed, it was Detroit’s first sacrifice bunt to score a run since July 5, 2021.
“If the safety squeeze works, you can’t defend it,” Vogt said. “We knew it was coming, and it takes a perfect bunt, and McKinstry — tip your cap. It was an absolute perfect bunt.”
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Added Hinch: “You can play for the big inning, which we often do, but we have that play in our playbook for moments like this, where it was an extreme need to take the lead with so few outs left.”
Detroit’s uncharacteristic gambit paid off for a late lead. But that lead was jeopardized in the final frame, once again in chaotic and Guardians-esque fashion. Facing reliever Will Vest, who was tasked with recording the final four outs, Ramírez led off with a hard grounder up the middle that shortstop Javy Báez was able to snag, only to uncork a poor throw to first that Spencer Torkelson was unable to corral at first base. The ball rolled far enough away that Ramírez raced all the way to third, putting the tying run 90 feet away with nobody out — the ultimate tightrope for a closer to walk.
But Vest beared down. And just as Skubal was able to refocus earlier amid the madness to continue to make pitches and get outs, Vest stayed the course. He struck out George Valera with a gnarly changeup. He used the changeup again to get Manzardo to tap one right back at him, and he charged toward Ramírez — who had started to run home — and tagged him for the second out, squashing the Guardians’ best chance of tying the game. Pinch-hitter C.J. Kayfus popped out to Báez on the next pitch for the final out, completing Vest’s high-stakes escape and securing a humongous 2-1 victory for Detroit.
From here, history does not favor the Guardians. Since the best-of-three wild-card format was reintroduced in 2022, all 12 Game 1 winners have gone on to claim the series. Just twice has the Game 1 loser (2022 Mets vs. Padres, 2024 Brewers vs. Mets) even forced a Game 3.
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But as the manager of a team that was left for dead on multiple occasions over the course of the season, Vogt remains undaunted.
“Our backs have been against the wall for three months,” he said. “What’s one more day?”
Vogt will give right-hander Tanner Bibee the ball for Game 2 on Wednesday with the season on the line. The Tigers will counter with Casey Mize, the former No. 1 pick who didn’t make Detroit’s postseason roster a year ago but has experienced a resurgence in 2025.
As for Skubal, he did his job and then some. Now he can sit back and watch one of his closest friends in the organization try to do the same to help the Tigers advance.
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“I’ve got the pleasure of being teammates with him since 2018,” he said of Mize. “We came up together through the minor leagues, rehabbed together when we got hurt in the big leagues. I’ve seen the work he’s put in. I couldn’t be more excited to see him pitch and compete.
“He’s our guy tomorrow.”
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