WEST SACRAMENTO -- The quirky geography of Sutter Health Park provided the best clue that Tarik Skubal’s career with the Detroit Tigers was coming to an end Saturday night.
After the second inning, Skubal and fellow starting pitchers Casey Mize, Justin Verlander and Jack Flaherty made the walk from the first-base dugout to the clubhouse beyond center field. Later in the game, Mize, Verlander and Flaherty returned. Skubal did not.
“The walk to the clubhouse was very normal,” Skubal said after the game, following reports he had been traded to the Dodgers for three prospects. “I normally go in and do some stuff, move around a little bit, get some treatment.”
But while in the clubhouse, Skubal received a phone call that upended any concept of normalcy.
“I was like, ‘I know what this is,’” he said. “And it didn’t feel like it was the right time to go back out there.”
By the seventh inning, when ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that Skubal was being traded for prospects Zyhir Hope, River Ryan and Brady Smith, Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said fans behind the Tigers’ dugout could be heard talking about the trade.
“It started to gain its own little momentum,” Hinch said. “Obviously, I think we’ve been bracing for things like this to happen, or something like this to happen, and then when it does, Tarik is not in the dugout, so there was a lot of unknown at that time and we were in the middle of a game. It wasn’t really talked about a ton, but Jack and Casey and Justin had come back from the clubhouse, and everybody was asking a bunch of questions.”
Skubal, the back-to-back American League Cy Young winner and most celebrated trade-deadline prize in years, fought back tears as he recounted his nine seasons in the Tigers organization, a stretch that began when he was drafted in the ninth round out of Seattle University in 2018.
“I’m very appreciative of all the things the Tigers did for me,” he said. “Drafting me in 2018, giving a kid a chance out of a small school and giving me every resource to use. Everything has always been at my disposal. They’ve always had answers and a plan for me, so, yeah -- I feel like I’ve experienced a lot and gone through a lot of failure early in my career, and this club never stopped believing in me. They kept throwing me back out there every fifth day when I probably didn’t deserve it. That’s something I’ll never take for granted.”
It seems as if the discussions around Skubal’s future have been swirling forever, and the signs that it would end in a deadline trade were difficult to miss. He won an arbitration-record $32 million salary for this season after the Tigers offered $19 million. After that, the Tigers never made a serious effort to sign him to a long-term deal. The team got off to a poor start, and the talk got louder. Skubal underwent surgery to remove loose bodies in his throwing elbow, came back quickly and resumed his dominance. But despite playing much better baseball since June, the Tigers -- 53-58 and 5½ games back in the AL Central -- could do no better than peek their heads in and out of contention.
By this weekend, it seemed inevitable: In order to recoup anything of value for the impending free agent, the Tigers would have to find a willing trade partner.
“It’s crazy,” Skubal said. “Going into this season, this isn’t what I planned on doing. But circumstances change, situations change.”
As recently as July 23, Skubal said his intention was to remain a Tiger. As he recounted his career in Detroit, he referred specifically to just two games, both season-ending Game 5 losses, to the Cleveland Guardians in the 2024 American League Division Series and to Seattle Mariners in the 2025 division series.
“Ever since that ’24 Game 5 failure, I’ve used that as fuel to bring a World Series to the city of Detroit,” he said. “I truly did. That whole offseason I was never more motivated, and then to go in and lose Game 5 again, that failure kind of sparked more motivation to dig deeper and see how good you can truly be. The goal was always to win a World Series for the city and the organization that took a chance on me.”
He pointed toward the Tigers clubhouse. “It’s tough,” he said, his voice cracking. “I love all those guys in there. They’re some of my best friends.”
He paused and rubbed a hand across his face. He was asked something about the Dodgers.
He looked up, fought back tears and said, “Sorry,” followed by 13 seconds of silence that felt like forever.
“Yeah, it’s exciting,” he said. “I’m excited.”
