Lakeland, Fla. — What, exactly, Tarik Skubal found lacking Monday was not clear. Blue Jays hitters might have wondered also after their first 13 batters struck out seven times against Skubal’s brew of 96-mph fastballs, sliders, change-ups — and even a sprinkling of curveballs in the Tigers’ 4-2 victory at Marchant Stadium’s Publix Field.
But this is what you get with athletes who set high bars. They’re looking for something closer to perfection.
Skubal wasn’t flawless Monday. But he looked again like an emerging, top-tier, left-handed artist who will spoil an awful lot of hitters’ days and nights during the 2022 schedule.
“I felt like my stuff was coming out good — I’ll take it,” Skubal said afterward, although he couldn’t resist some self-indictments about “command” being less than peak on a day when he worked five innings, threw 74 pitches (52 strikes), allowed five hits, no runs, and no walks as he finished with eight strikeouts.
He all but shrugged and finally allowed: “I really like where my stuff’s at.”
Again, no argument from the Blue Jays.
George Springer, a noted masher, stuck out three times in three at-bats against Skubal. Skubal was beating up on the Jays with 96-mph four-seamers and two-seamers as hot as 95. He buried some sliders at helpful times.
And he particularly liked his change-up, which he didn’t mind doubling-up on during various at-bats that had the Jays batters rattled as they shuffled back to the dugout.
“These guys want to hit fastballs in fastball counts,” Skubal said of the Blue Jays order that’s part of an extraordinarily talented Toronto team. “You throw fastballs in those counts and they’re gonna get hit.
“I really like that pitch (change-up) for me.”
As for that “command” deficit he felt Tuesday, his manager, AJ Hinch seemed to understand.
“He’s hard on himself,” Hinch said, “but he’s a pitcher in control of the game who won some big at-bats.”
Much of this potential to make hitters ill was apparent last season when Skubal, in his first full season, threw 149.1 innings (31 games), with a 1.26 WHIP that is a better measure of his punches than that 4.34 ERA.
It’s the sheer volume of his size (6-foot-3, 240 pounds), the angle at which he bores in on hitters with his long left arm, and the quality of that bagful of pitches he tosses — all helped make him even last year one of the tougher lefties in the American League.
Now, he seems ready for a boost in status, all because he’s learning so much about hitters and about his craft as he flings those pitches that are a deadly combo of fury and finesse.
“I’m doing some stuff that’s letting me get away with some pitches,” he acknowledged, which is another way of saying that when you match velocity and spin as Skubal can do, you get the occasional break.
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Quite the debut
The Tigers were locked up with the Jays, 2-2, in the eighth when one of those moments that can only happen in a Grapefruit League game arrived.
Roberto Campos, who is all of 18 years old, drilled a two-run, opposite-field drive onto the veranda in right field that won a ballgame for Detroit.
Campos is not to be confused with some anonymous teen prospect.
He is a Cuban-born outfielder the Tigers three years ago handed their then-heaviest signing bonus in the history of Detroit signing international players: $2.8 million as he was recruited out of the Dominican Republic, to which he had defected as a 13-year-old.
Campos is a magnificently sculpted lad, 6-3, 200-plus pounds, who looks like a teenage version of one-time Tigers billboard hitter Juan Gonzalez.
His presence Tuesday had to do with the usual need for bodies that teams require during Grapefruit League games. Campos was a late replacement and nearly saw all the drama disappear when, during his eighth-inning at-bat, he topped a grounder down the third-base line.
The ball was fielded near the line and Campos appeared to be out at first.
That is, until home-plate umpire Mark Wegner began waving his arms and signaling that the ball was foul.
Campos got another crack and ripped into a 93-mph fastball that in an instant was crashing into those right-field Adirondack chairs.
Campos has a personality to match his sudden celebrity. He is a stream of smiles, effusiveness, and animated gestures.
“It is amazing,” he said by way of the Tigers’ team interpreter, Carlos Guillen, who converts Spanish into English for media covering the Tigers. “I have no words to describe that thing.”
He does indeed represent a heavy investment for the Tigers, who are overdue for an international prospect to become a mid-order mauler. Campos at least offered an early peek Tuesday into what the Tigers all along have believed they’ve added to a system hungry for bats.
Plus day for pitchers
Skubal was solid Tuesday, as was Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman, who went six innings, allowing three hits, one of which was an opposite-field, homer to the left-field berm by Willi Castro.
Castro is on the bubble as Hinch decides whether to take 15 position players and 13 pitchers, or opt for a 14-14 split ahead of Wednesday’s team flight to Detroit. But the fact Castro replaced Akil Baddoo in center later in Tuesday’s game explains why, if Hinch goes with 15 fielders, Castro figures to be the 15th man.
Other pitchers who worked Tuesday for Detroit included Joe Jimenez (one inning, no hits, one walk) and Gregory Soto (one inning, one hit).
Alex Lange had a rough eighth: two-thirds of an inning, two hits, one walk, one strikeout, while Drew Hutchison finished with 1.1 innings of scoreless work, striking out one.
Quotable
Hinch on new catcher Tucker Barnhart: “He catches so many good pitches around the margins. When your best pitchers are raving about a guy, that’s good enough for me.”
Hinch about players getting overly itchy to say goodbye to Florida and begin the 162-game calendar:
“Playing a spring-training game with one foot on the plane is dangerous.”
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and former Detroit News sports reporter.