With the Detroit Tigers season on the line, they have the best player on the field toeing the bump in Saturday afternoon’s Game 5, winner-take-all matchup against the Cleveland Guardians. They may have home field advantage, but Tarik Skubal is an advantage that transcends all others right now.
The presumptive AL Cy Young winner is now beyond 200 innings on the year for the first time in his major league career. That’s remarkable enough in an era where precious few starting pitchers reach that mark. More remarkable perhaps is the fact that despite the workload, Skubal is pitching his best baseball of the year over the last month.