{"id":871550,"date":"2026-08-28T14:36:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T14:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/871550\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T14:36:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T14:36:13","slug":"the-opener-sale-skubal-rays-jenkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/871550\/","title":{"rendered":"The Opener: Sale, Skubal, Rays, Jenkins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Sale<\/a> is pitching like a man possessed. Atlanta\u2019s ace shut out the Dodgers last night with an 11-strikeout, five-hit masterpiece \u2014 completing a sweep of the NL West division leaders in the process. It\u2019s the seventh consecutive quality start for Sale, who has only allowed more than three runs in an appearance once this season. That came way back on April 6, when the Angels pounced him for six runs in four innings. Since that time, Sale has pitched 128 innings of 1.83 ERA ball with a comical 161-to-23 K\/BB ratio. There\u2019s a decent gap between Sale\u2019s 2.06 ERA and the NL-leading Jacob Misiorowski<\/a>, and Sale is also 24 1\/3 innings behind Philadelphia\u2019s Cristopher S\u00e1nchez<\/a> for the NL innings lead (168 1\/3 to 144). The 37-year-old Sale is still making the NL Cy Young chase a genuine three-horse race, however, and if he continues dominating like this while either the Miz or S\u00e1nchez falters, it\u2019s not out of the question that he could win the second Cy Young Award of his Atlanta tenure.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll be watching for that down the stretch, but here\u2019s three things to look out for today:<\/p>\n

1. Skubal back in Detroit<\/p>\n

Tonight, two-time American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal<\/a> returns to the only home ballpark he\u2019d known in the majors until his Aug. 1 trade to the Dodgers. Skubal and the Dodgers are set to kick off a three-game set in Detroit, and he\u2019ll take the mound tonight opposite former teammate Drew Anderson<\/a>. Skubal hasn\u2019t\u00a0quite\u00a0been his Cy Young Award-caliber self in Los Angeles, though the 3.38 ERA, 30.3% strikeout rate and 7.1% walk rate he\u2019s notched through four starts are clearly excellent. He\u2019s coming off an 11-strikeout showing against the Pirates. There will surely be plenty of emotions tonight \u2014 both for Skubal and the Tigers faithful.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know how people are going to react,\u201d former Tigers teammate Troy Melton<\/a> tells Carlos Monarrez of the Detroit Free Press<\/a>. \u201cYou know, some people are going to feel some type of way. It probably will be mixed. I think it\u2019ll be more positive. In my opinion, I think it should be more positive than negative. \u2026 Skoob\u2019s the man and he was great to this organization, so I think it\u2019d be right if we didn\u2019t do that [and boo]. But it\u2019s their decision and it\u2019s part of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts tells Jack Harris of the California Post<\/a> that he expects \u201ca lot of people cheering [Skubal] on\u201d but that his new lefty will rise above any emotions and focus on the task at hand: \u201cI think that whole \u2018be where your feet are\u2019 adage, I think that\u2019s just who he is. Some people have a hard time letting go. But I think that Tarik is a guy that, wherever he\u2019s at, he\u2019s all-in.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Rays stadium vote<\/p>\n

Hillsborough County commissioner Ken Hagan last week called for a special meeting to take place this morning, wherein the county will vote on the Rays\u2019 latest stadium proposal. The Tampa City Council voted to approve the plan just yesterday<\/a>, committing to $80MM in city funding. The county would need to provide nearly $800MM in funding, while the Rays themselves are committing to around $1.4 billion in private financing as well as any overruns. Nicolas Villamil of the Tampa Bay Times provides<\/a> various details on the 4-3 vote in favor from the city council yesterday, as well as some the hurdles the proposition may face in the county this morning. The vote is the latest in a seemingly interminable quest for the Rays to build a new stadium in the Tampa area \u2014 a notion that has been backed by new majority owner Patrick Zalupski and his crew since former owner Stu Sternberg sold the club last year.<\/p>\n

3. Jenkins debuts for the Twins<\/p>\n

The Twins are calling up top outfield prospect Walker Jenkins<\/a> for his major league debut. The former No. 5 overall pick is a consensus top-10 prospect in the sport who has laid waste to Triple-A pitching this season. The 21-year-old is hitting .323\/.417\/.559 with 14 homers, 17 steals, a huge 13.3% walk rate and a tiny 15.4% strikeout rate this season. Jenkins has missed some time due to injury, but he\u2019s the most touted Twins prospect in years and has the potential to cement himself as a fixture in the heart of Minnesota\u2019s order for years to come. He joins another recent first-rounder, shortstop Kaelen Culpepper<\/a>, in getting the call to Minnesota post-deadline. Culpepper has hit the ground running with a .333\/.381\/.526 line and three homers in his first 63 major league plate appearances. They\u2019re the best pair of prospects the Twins have promoted in such proximity for quite some time, and that duo will give Twins fans a glimpse of what the future holds as Minnesota tries to stay alive in a mediocre AL Wild Card hunt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Sale is pitching like a man possessed. Atlanta\u2019s ace shut out the Dodgers last night with an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-871550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}