DETROIT -- Tarik Skubal saw Seiya Suzuki’s fly ball carrying deep to right and thought of Kristian Campbell, the Red Sox rookie whose fly ball to a similar spot cleared the wall for a go-ahead home run in the 11th inning on May 13.
“The ball just kind of kept going and going and going,” Skubal said. “It kept carrying on a pitch that I felt like we won the at-bat with the pitch. You’re doing everything you can in the dugout to reel it back in.”
Skubal had just left Friday’s start against the Cubs with two outs, two on and a one-run lead in the eighth inning, giving way to Will Vest for a four-out save opportunity. He had the same incredulous reaction as most everyone else in the Tigers' dugout.
“When he hit [it], you feel really good, like, ‘OK, we got out of it,’” manager A.J. Hinch said. “And when watching [Kerry Carpenter] have to continue to go back and back and back, I still thought he had it. And then the jump is when I really started to feel a little nervous.”
The uncertainty seemed to fit the hazy sky that hung over Comerica Park. Vest was on one knee on the mound. Everyone seemed nervous and uncertain, except Carpenter.
“I knew that he got it pretty good,” Carpenter said. “It was like that time of night where it was pretty hard to see, so that’s where I kind of just trusted the read that I had on it the whole time. Once it came back down into the lights, I saw it better.”
The sky forced Carpenter to keep his eye on the ball throughout its path, but he had enough of a glimpse around him to know he was close to the wall. So he made a jump just in front of it. And as he came back down with the ball and the lead preserved, the Tigers went nuts, including a flex and yell from Skubal.
The man known for producing clutch hits late in big games just took one away.
“I love it,” Carpenter said after the 3-1 win, “because I work hard at it. And it’s something that our coaches help me get better at. For that to pay off is pretty awesome.”
It fit the theme for the night. The way Skubal has pitched this season, defense can be an afterthought. He’s the first pitcher with 90 or more strikeouts and three or fewer walks in an 11-start span in at least the past 125 seasons, and his average exit velocity of 85.3 mph entering Friday ranked in the 97th percentile among MLB pitchers, according to Statcast. But his latest victory put the defense behind him on display, not only over his seven-plus innings but after he left.
“Even early in the game, the first couple innings, they made some,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “I counted five really nice defensive plays that they made to turn balls into outs, really. So, credit to them for that.
“Good pitcher on the mound, and you make five really good plays? That’s going to be tough.”
Or, as first baseman Spencer Torkelson put it, “That was an absolute clinic by the guys.”
Skubal retired 12 of his first 13 batters, and he would have retired all 13 if not for Matt Shaw barely beating third baseman Zach McKinstry’s throw for an infield single with two outs in the third. McKinstry had fired across the infield to rob Nico Hoerner to start the inning, as did shortstop Javier Báez from deep in the hole on ex-Tiger Carson Kelly an inning earlier.
The Cubs finally threatened with back-to-back hits leading off the fifth. Even then, Báez paved the way for Skubal’s escape. By sending his relay throw to third rather than home on Dansby Swanson’s double, Báez took advantage of Pete Crow-Armstrong overrunning a last-second stop sign from Cubs third-base coach and former Tigers outfielder Quintin Berry.
Instead of runners at second and third and nobody out, Skubal had a runner at second and one out.
“Now you feel like you can kind of MacGyver and get out of it,” said Skubal, who retired Hoerner and fanned Justin Turner.
Kyle Tucker, robbed by Báez in the fourth, got his revenge with a game-tying RBI double in the sixth, but Torkelson’s go-ahead homer in the bottom half off Cubs starter Ben Brown restored Skubal’s lead. Three hits off Skubal in the eighth would have tied it, but catcher Dillon Dingler threw a laser to second to catch Shaw trying to steal.
"We just had so many key plays,” Hinch said. “Any of those plays could have changed the whole complexion."