If you want tension in the postseason, you got it here. Personally, as somebody who cares a lot about his heart rate, mental health, and overall well-being, I could’ve done without the tension. The fact that this is only game one scares me. I need to pace myself. A nice six-nothing victory would’ve been sufficient for me, but we rarely get what we ask for in this game, and instead, we got as close to a postseason game as you’re going to see.
What we saw today from Tarik Skubal in Game 1 at Progressive Field is a baseball rarity. It is the kind of performance that will be talked about by fans of this team for generations to come. This was an ace performance by an ace pitcher. A guy with very little to prove who’s about to have two Cy Youngs in his back pocket, going on the road to a hostile environment and pitching one of the best games of his career in the biggest game of his season. Today’s performance was a far cry from last year’s grand slam in Game Five and the error he made just a week ago that led to Cleveland taking the division.
Tarik Skubal is 90% of the reason why this team found a way to win today, and no one can take that from him. But that was a gutsy effort by Will Vest to be able to close things out after a disastrous start to his outing, in which Jose Ramirez found himself on third base with nobody out. Vest was able to rewrite the ending of a movie that we’ve seen many times between these two teams over the last decade. Hopefully, this is the start of a trend.
While the pitching carried them, you have to give Detroit a lot of credit for beating Cleveland at their own game today. They actually won with small ball. This is a team that never bunts, and they had two perfectly executed sacrifice bunts, including one from Zach McKinstry that scored a run. I still don’t come away from today’s ball game feeling particularly good about the heart of the order. Riley Greene had a better day, but as a whole, this team still refuses to take advantage of opportunities in which they have runners on base with less than two outs.
A.J. Hinch is never one to speak in absolutes, nor are any of his players, but every Tiger fan and player alike knows that if Detroit were to win this series, they had to win today. You couldn’t lose another Tarik Skubal start, and while it was by the most razor-thin of margins, Detroit did what they needed to do. As frustrated as I am with the offense right now, you aren’t going to play many slugfests in October. Runs will be at a premium, which is why you have to take advantage of opportunities. Detroit was able to do just enough offensively today. Thankfully, the Tigers have a Tarik Skubal, and the Guardians don’t.