Tigers 10, Brewers 2: Skubal stymies, batsmen bash

An eight-run inning, as it turns out, really can help a team win a game.

After a blowout loss on Friday and a narrow defeat on Saturday, could the Tigers salvage one measly game out of a weekend three-game series, with their nominal “stopper” on the mound? The answer was a resounding yes as the Tigers took the finale 10-2 on a pleasant but breezy Sunday afternoon.

Said stopper, Tarik Skubal, was coming off two starts in which, combined, he gave up one run in 13 innings, struck out 14 and walked three. Somewhat unusually though, in his previous start against Texas, he gave up seven hits, although he limited the damage to one run and the Tigers came away with a 2-1 victory.

Bryse Wilson made the start for the Brew Crew on Sunday, his eighth of the year and sixteenth appearance overall. He’s been a spot-starter and long-reliever all season, and has been getting good results… but with a FIP of over 5 and an ERA under 4, he’s been decently lucky. However, last season entirely out of the bullpen he had a similar gap and went 6-0 with three saves so, heck, apparently he’s just a really lucky guy. I should get him to buy me a lottery ticket someday.

Wenceel Pérez led off the game with an infield single, and with one out Mark Canha was plunked on an 0-2 pitch. Riley Greene then doubled-in Perez for a 1-0 score, pushing Canha to third.

A wacky fielder’s-choice-but-nobody-got-out by Gio Urshela loaded the bases, and Justyn-Henry Malloy hit a sacrifice fly to centre which was deep enough to score Canha, making it 2-0 for the home team.

Skubal looked good early on, striking out a bunch of dudes in the first couple of innings, and in the third he unleashed a four-seam fastball to Rhys Hoskins at 101.7 mph (163.7 km/h, 45.5 m/s), which may well be the fastest pitch he’s thrown in the major leagues. A couple of innings later he unleashed a slider at 93 mph (you can convert it on your own). My goodness.

A couple of walks and a fielder’s choice in the top of the fourth put runners on the corners with two outs. Jackson Chourio lofted a liner to left, but Greene made a nice diving catch for the third out, saving at least one and possibly two runs.

Greene’s sunglasses, on the other hand, appear to have been destroyed on the play.

In the fifth Pérez bunted for a hit, Canha got plunked for a second time, and Greene walked to load the bases. Urshela poked a single through the middle to score Pérez and Canha, and Malloy walked to re-load the bases. Sidearming lefty Hoby Milner replaced Wilson to face fellow lefty Zach McKinstry, but ultimately McKinstry hit a flare to left field to plate Greene and Urshela.

Kudos to McKinstry there; that was not a nice angle to have to look at a pitch. Andy Ibáñez then singled to bring home Malloy, but Jake Rogers cleared the bases with a three-run dinger to make it an even 10-0 after pushing eight runs across in the frame.

The Brewers got on the board with two outs in the seventh after an infield single and a triple scored Chourio to narrow the gap to 10-1. That ended Skubal’s fine day, and Will Vest needed one pitch to get the third out on a soft comebacker. Skubal’s final line: 6 ⅔ innings, 5 hits, 1 run, 2 walks, 10 whiffs to lower his ERA to a tidy 1.92 (more on this below).

Joey Wentz had a nifty 1-2-3 eighth, helped by a sensational catch by Matt Vierling.

Jake Bauers, normally a first baseman, pinch-hit in the eighth and stayed in the game to pitch in the blowout as the Brewers raised the white flag. His pitches were mostly in the 60s and were all called sliders by the robots… but he got all three guys out, so take that.

Mason Englert came on for the ninth to get a little work in, and he gave up a run but it didn’t affect the outcome of the game, as you can imagine.

Box Score: Tigers 10, Brewers 2

This Skubal fellow is quite good

Notes and Whatnot

• Great article in The Athletic today about Justyn-Henry Malloy’s number-change from 36 to 44. I wondered if it had something to do with Hank Aaron, and it does: JHM’s dad, Henry, was named after Aaron. So the change is a tribute to both Hank Aaron and Henry Malloy. Neat.
• I see that the next Bonnaroo Music Festival is starting up on Thursday. I was at the 2006 edition of this, and apparently another BYB staffer was at it as well. On the big Saturday, on the same stage, I saw the Neville Brothers, Elvis Costello with Allan Toussaint, Beck, and Radiohead . Other notable bands/artists I saw that weekend were Sonic Youth, Ben Folds, Dr. John, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Andrew Bird, Cat Power and Dungen. Probably never gonna top that, but that’s fine.
• A before-she-was-famous Lady Gaga was also in the crowd for that Radiohead show, and has said it was the best concert she’s ever been to.
• Les Paul was born on this day in 1915. To say he revolutionized how the guitar is used in popular music would be an incredible understatement: his technical creativity, paired with his raw skills as a guitarist, made the electric guitar into the focal instrument of rock and roll. I recently read The Birth of Loud, a history of his and Leo Fender’s mostly-friendly rivalry in the 40s and ‘50s which pushed the electric guitar foward, and it is a fantastic book .