{"id":843392,"date":"2026-08-03T00:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T00:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/843392\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T00:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T00:36:11","slug":"tigers-face-difficult-challenge-after-trading-ace-tarik-skubal-to-dodgers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/843392\/","title":{"rendered":"Tigers face difficult challenge after trading ace Tarik Skubal to Dodgers"},"content":{"rendered":"

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 The Detroit Tigers<\/a> said their goodbyes to ace Tarik Skubal<\/a> and now must turn their focus to an uncertain final two months of the season as they try to make a playoff push without their best player.<\/p>\n

The Tigers\u00a0traded the two-time reigning AL Cy Young Award winner\u00a0to the Los Angeles Dodgers for three minor league prospects in a deal that was agreed to late Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cBaseball has a funny way of challenging you to deal with change,\u201d Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said before the series finale against the Athletics on Sunday. \u201cSometimes that\u2019s difficult, sometimes it\u2019s part of the game and part of the business. These guys are callous to some of the emotions that come with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hinch’s team responded with\u00a0an 11-0 win\u00a0to complete the series sweep and keep the Tigers within 2 1\/2 games of the last wild-card spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe played a really good series in the midst of a lot of different things swirling around us,\u201d Hinch said. \u201cThis group\u2019s pretty tough. We go through it game by game and showed a lot of character, obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moving on without Skubal will be the ultimate challenge. The ninth-round draft pick in 2018 developed into one of the best pitchers in baseball, winning the Cy Young in 2024 and ’25 and posting a 2.40 ERA over the past three seasons.<\/p>\n

Skubal is 7-5 this season with a 2.79 ERA and 116 strikeouts in 96 2\/3 innings and had a major impact in the clubhouse. But with him set to become a free agent after the season, the Tigers opted to trade him for minor league right-handers River Ryan and Brady Smith and outfielder Zyhir Hope.<\/p>\n

Hinch said it was important for the players to appreciate what Skubal gave the team while still understanding the task ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wasn\u2019t going to pitch today. So we have to be sort of cold about we got to move on and go play today\u2019s game that he wasn\u2019t going to impact despite the loss of his presence in our clubhouse,\u201d Hinch said. “We have a ton of respect for what he brought every day, his preparation, his attitude, his desire to win. That impact doesn\u2019t leave with him as he gets on a plane to go to a different team. The day-to-day does, and we\u2019re going to have to find a way to overcome it.\u201d<\/p>\n

News of the trade broke during\u00a0Detroit’s 8-6 win over the A’s\u00a0on Saturday night with many players first hearing about it from fans near the dugout during the game. Skubal was back in the clubhouse beyond the center-field fence at the minor league stadium where the A’s play when he got the news, making it impossible for the players to get the news directly from him until after the game.<\/p>\n

But they managed to focus on the game and come up with the win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team\u2019s handled it really well,\u201d first baseman Spencer Torkelson said. \u201cLeading up to the trade, I thought we blocked out the noise amazing. Even in the sixth inning when everyone\u2019s screaming at us from the stands that we traded our best pitcher, I think we kept our focus and kept the main thing the main thing. I think as a team we still believe in ourselves and we know that we\u2019re definitely not out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trade came at an uncertain time for the Tigers, who have overcome a slow start to the season to get close to playoff position.<\/p>\n

Prized prospect Max Clark was called up from the minors on Friday and has delivered by reaching base safely nine times in three games. But the team also scratched Casey Mize from his scheduled start this weekend in case he gets traded before the deadline Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a weird, weird place,” Mize said. \u201cWe\u2019ve played really good baseball the last couple days. We trade our best player. It says we\u2019re 2 1\/2 back, but obviously there\u2019s a lot of teams still to overpass, so it\u2019s certainly a strange spot.”<\/p>\n

The task now will be to try to get back to the playoffs without Skubal after they lost in Game 5 of the division series the past two seasons. Skubal started both of those losses. He had a rough start and took the loss in 2024 against Cleveland. He had a strong start last season with 13 strikeouts in six innings against Seattle but the bullpen squandered a 2-1 lead and the Tigers went on to lose 3-2 in 15 innings.<\/p>\n

Skubal said Saturday night after the trade that it hurt that he couldn’t help deliver Detroit its first World Series title since 1984.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the last couple of years, we don\u2019t get anywhere near to what we\u2019ve done without Tarik Skubal,\u201d Mize said. \u201cI hope our fan base is appreciative of that, even if it maybe didn\u2019t end the way that everyone wanted it to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tigers fans might get a chance to see Skubal again later this month when the Dodgers visit Detroit Aug. 28-30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 The Detroit Tigers said their goodbyes to ace Tarik Skubal and now must turn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":843393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-843392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}