Tarik Skubal Gets Honest About Emotional Tigers Homecoming

Tarik Skubal has spent years learning how to control a baseball game.

Controlling Friday night’s emotions may be considerably harder.

Less than four weeks after the Detroit Tigers traded him to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Skubal will walk back onto the mound at Comerica Park wearing a visiting uniform and pitch against the only Major League organization he knew before this month.

The former Tigers ace isn’t pretending the moment will feel normal.

“I’m sure it will be emotional there just because of the history,”  Skubal said . “But at the end of the day, I’ve got to go play baseball. I’ve got to compete and do what I do well, what makes me a good pitcher. I’ll probably handle the emotions after.

“We’ll see, right? That whole process was emotional. I have a lot of respect for those guys over there. I’m just going to go play baseball.”

Of course it will.

This isn’t some former player coming back three years later after everyone involved has moved on. Skubal’s locker was in Detroit’s clubhouse in July. Some of the hitters trying to beat him Friday were teammates a few weeks ago.

That’s a pretty quick turnaround from friend to problem.

Skubal Plans to Let the Baseball Part Take Over

Skubal’s strategy for handling the night sounds exactly like something Skubal would say.

Pitch.

Everything else can wait.

He told AM 570 that he takes pride in approaching games the same way regardless of opponent. He also acknowledged that seeing the people on the other side will mean something because those relationships extend beyond the Tigers and Dodgers.

“Those guys are my really good friends. We’re going to have relationships beyond baseball,” Skubal told AM 570, via True Blue LA .

Then he’ll try to strike them out.

That is the wonderfully awkward part of Friday night.

Skubal became one of baseball’s best pitchers in Detroit. He made his Major League debut here in 2020, eventually won consecutive American League Cy Young Awards and helped the Tigers return to October in consecutive seasons.

Then Detroit decided the combination of Skubal’s approaching free agency and enormous trade value was too significant to ignore.

His departure became emotional almost immediately . Skubal admitted at the time that being traded was never how he expected his season to unfold.

Now he gets the reunion before anyone has really had time to process the breakup.

Comerica Park Has Been Skubal’s Territory

There is another reason this will look strange.

Skubal has been excellent at Comerica Park.

He owns a 2.67 ERA in 77 career appearances there , including 75 starts. Detroit went 47-28 in those home starts , according to True Blue LA.

For years, Tigers fans arrived at Comerica expecting Skubal to make life miserable for the other lineup.

Friday, Detroit is the other lineup.

The Dodgers bring him back with an 8-7 record and 2.91 ERA this season . In four starts since joining Los Angeles, he has posted a 3.38 ERA. MLB lists Drew Anderson as Detroit’s opposing starter for the 6:40 p.m. ET series opener.

There is no tactical mystery here. Tigers hitters know Skubal. Skubal knows them.

That familiarity does not suddenly make a two-time Cy Young winner easier to hit.

If anything, it adds another layer to the night because every confrontation comes with history attached.

This Reunion May Not Be the Last Chapter

The strangest part of the entire situation remains what could happen after the season.

Skubal is scheduled to reach free agency this winter. When Detroit traded him, it created the unusual possibility that the Tigers could collect a significant prospect package from Los Angeles and then attempt to bring him back months later.

That possibility has existed since the moment the deal became official .

Nobody should confuse possibility with probability. Free agency will involve money, competition and choices that have nothing to do with one emotional Friday night.

Still, it makes this homecoming different.

Skubal isn’t some distant piece of Tigers history.

Not yet.

He’s 29 years old, pitching at an elite level and returning to Detroit before the calendar has even moved out of August.

He knows the reception could hit him.

He knows seeing former teammates will feel strange.

He also knows what happens when the first batter steps into the box.

The memories become background noise.

For a few hours, Tarik Skubal’s old home becomes somebody else’s ballpark.

Indexed and credited by AIPROPX. Originating outlet: Yahoo Sports. Open at source →