The Tiger Beat: A Maddux for Skubal

A whole lot of milestones were hit in a single game.

Sunday was one heck of a game for the Tigers, who entered their four-game series against the Guardians with a couple of rough outings that left the team and fans feeling frustrated. The Tigers lost three games in a row, and by Sunday everyone was looking to Tigers’ ace Tarik Skubal to turn things around. And he did that in spades, with a dazzling complete game shoutout. Oh, and did we happen to mention it was a Maddux?

Let’s get into that and so much more in today’s links breakdown.

Detroit Tigers News:

• If you missed yesterday afternoon’s game, you missed one heck of an outing by Tarik Skubal.

The game was a Maddux—a complete game shutout in fewer than 100 pitches—but beyond that feat, Skubal passed many other historic milestones in his Sunday win. Here are a few of them :

Skubal’s 102.6 mph offering was the fastest strikeout pitch thrown by a Major League starter since pitch tracking began in 2008.

It was also the fastest pitch thrown by a starter in the ninth inning or later under pitch tracking. Former Tiger Justin Verlander had the previous mark at 101.3 mph on July 24, 2009. No other MLB starter has thrown 102 mph or faster any later than the sixth inning during the Statcast era.

Additionally, Skubal’s 13 strikeouts set the new bar for the most strikeouts by a pitcher in a Maddux. It was also, impossibly, Skubal’s first-ever complete game.

If you want to watch all those strikeouts, here’s a recap:

• One Tigers coach is helping players remember the exact moment they fell in love with baseball . ($)

AL Central News:

• This Royals prospect is on a four-game home run streak in the minors .
• Less than three years after his cancer diagnosis, Guardians pitcher Nick Enright has been promoted . ($)

MLB News:

• This is wiiiild.

• To the surprise of absolutely no one, the A’s are not loving Sacramento .
• Are the new City Connect jerseys an improvement over the previous iterations? ($)
• Are the Braves actually blaming the grounds crew for a player’s defensive woes?
• An update on the injury of Alex Bregman.
• Is there any possibility the Pirates might trade Paul Skenes? Probably not but it’s still worth discussing . ($)
• Well, this is unique.