LOS ANGELES -- Tarik Skubal wasn’t his typical, dominant self in his Dodger Stadium debut Monday night. He lasted only five innings, requiring 95 pitches to record the game’s first 15 outs while once again battling spotty command of his fastball.
But all that mattered was the ending.
“We won, so, I’ll gladly take that in a win any day of the week,” Skubal said after the Dodgers’ 6-5, come-from-behind victory over the last-place Kansas City Royals. “I’ll be better going forward.”
The Dodgers had won only once in eight tries since engineering their trade for Skubal, which reignited the narrative that their vast resources are ruining baseball. Before the start of a seven-game homestand that will end with four games against the first-place Milwaukee Brewers, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts publicly challenged his players.
“We’re a wild-card team right now,” Roberts said. “We’ve got to get going and play with urgency.”
The Dodgers showed it on offense. They trailed 3-0 after Jac Caglianone launched a two-run shot in the top of the third, a 110.8 mph line drive that went for the hardest-hit home run off Skubal this season. But they tacked on a couple of runs on a double from Shohei Ohtani and a single from Freddie Freeman in the bottom half, then got a two-out, three-run double from Max Muncy in the sixth.
After the Royals tied the score on a two-run homer from Kyle Isbel in the top of the seventh, Freeman gave the Dodgers the lead right back with a two-out RBI single in the bottom half. Two innings later, Edwin Diaz, who blew two saves on the road trip and has allowed five runs in four innings since coming back from elbow surgery, breezed through the bottom of the Royals’ lineup to secure a win.
“We’ve got a good group that’s been together for a long time, that knows how to win,” Freeman said. “There’s going to be no panic out of this clubhouse. I understand what Doc’s saying [about playing with urgency]. Baseball’s a little different. I can’t go out there and swing harder and throw harder. That’s just not how it works. But tonight was just a good baseball game that we played.”
After the game, Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes walked through the clubhouse and noted to some of the players that the team has a better record now (71-48) than it did at this point the past two seasons, both of which ended in championships. But it has been a while since it seemed as if the Dodgers were dominant. Since the start of July, they’re only 15-18 while ranking 21st in the majors in OPS and 23rd in ERA.
But Blake Snell, who has made one start all year, will be activated from the injured list to rejoin the rotation Tuesday. Fellow starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow could join him before the end of the month. All-Star catcher Will Smith is trending toward a rehab assignment. And Skubal, the two-time reigning American League Cy Young Award winner, should be better.
Seven days after pitching six innings of two-run ball during his Dodgers debut from Wrigley Field, Skubal struggled to put hitters away. Of the 16 Royals hitters who got to two-strike counts, Skubal struck out only six. Six of them reached base (on two singles, two walks, a hit by pitch and a homer). Caliganone’s homer came on an 0-2 count, off a slider that crept down the middle.
“I kind of sprayed the ball a little bit,” Skubal said. “That’s kind of unusual for me.”
Skubal, 29, was clearly emotional after his trade from the Detroit Tigers on Aug. 1. It’s the franchise that took him as a ninth-round pick eight years ago and developed him into an ace, and Skubal, a free agent at season’s end, did not want to be traded. Days after the trade, on the “Pardon My Take” podcast, Skubal expressed his desire to re-sign with the Tigers in the offseason.
But he has also been effusive in his praise of the Dodgers. And on Monday night, after the smoke cleared on his home debut, he downplayed the emotions that came with it.
“The game of baseball always stays the same, and that’s always normal to me,” Skubal said when asked if getting through his home debut provided any closure for the rest of the season. “I’m just playing in a new clubhouse, all that stuff. But my focus is always going to be to win a World Series and do what I can to help this team and give everything to this organization and see where the cards go at the end.”
