CLEVELAND, Ohio — Tarik Skubal and the Guardians have a complicated history.
It’s a rivalry that has grown sharper with every outing, and particularly in Skubal’s case, every postseason heartbreak.
In the last 12 days alone, Skubal has faced Cleveland three times, and Tuesday’s 2-1 Game 1 victory in the American League wild card series was the first time the Tigers left Progressive Field with a win. That streak-breaking moment echoed the winds of change for Skubal’s history against the Guardians.
Last year, in Game 5 of the AL Division Series, Skubal dazzled through much of the contest before a grand slam to Lane Thomas in the fifth inning flipped the script and ended Detroit’s season.
Cleveland fans no doubt imagined a sequel, a similar twist of fate. Only Tuesday, the story read differently.
Skubal was nearly untouchable, a master of his craft from first pitch to last.
He went 7 2/3 innings, allowing just three hits, two walks, and a single earned run while racking up 14 strikeouts — a playoff career-high for him and a mark that ties a Tigers postseason record.
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Not to mention, for the first time in his playoff career, Skubal reached triple digits on the radar gun. He did it 11 times with a max velocity of 101.2 mph, helping him produce 26 swing-and-misses.
Skubal also tallied three strikeouts over 100 mph. A historic flourish: second-most by a starter in a postseason game in the pitch-tracking era, behind only Jacob deGrom’s four in 2022 NLWCS Game 2.
When Skubal struck out the side on 14 pitches in the seventh, he galloped off the mound like a man who had carried his team through a storm. Eyes blazing, arm electric, he knew the Tigers were six outs from seizing a 1-0 lead in a series where Progressive Field has often been a proving ground they couldn’t conquer.
All the noise, the crowd, the playoff intensity — none of it mattered.
Skubal pitched to his own rhythm, became Detroit’s heartbeat, and reminded everyone why he’s the reigning Cy Young and a legitimate repeat favorite. By the time he left the game in the eighth, the Tigers needed only four outs to clinch the series opener.
Cleveland had won five of their last six games against Detroit over the past two weeks, a streak that could have intimidated any pitcher. But Skubal turned that familiarity into fuel, refusing to let the past define him. The Tigers walked off with momentum earned through dominant pitching under the brightest lights, setting the stage for Game 2 starter Casey Mize to seize his moment.
In a rivalry threaded with pain, near-misses, and grand-slam memories, Skubal rewrote his history in Cleveland with a fastball slicing through the roar of the crowd.