Life is a lot easier when the Detroit Tigers' offense decides to get runs for their ace, Tarik Skubal. That’s pretty much what happened today. Detroit came into this game as heavy favorites, as Skubal was facing the struggling Bryan Bello. Early on, it felt like Detroit had an opportunity to really bury the Red Sox early. Still, thanks to some rough at-bats, mainly by Spencer Torkelson, who’s exclusively having bad at-bats right now, Detroit was only able to plate one. Thankfully, the offense stayed patient against Bello, who was having trouble finding the zone for a good chunk of today’s game.
After what was a historically bad first few series of the year, Kerry Carpenter has started to look like the Kerry Carpenter that we are used to. He was on base three times today, including mashing a solo shot in the 4th inning to give the Tigers some cushion. It never felt like Detroit was necessarily able to land a knockout punch in this game, but given the pitcher that they had on the mound, most of us felt pretty comfortable once they got three or four runs on the board.
It just shows the ridiculous expectations we have for Tarik Skubal at this point. We're almost a month into the season, and Skubal has an ERA of 2.08, yet it doesn’t feel like he’s quite had his best stuff since Opening Day. Don’t get me wrong, he was masterful today, putting up his first 10-strikeout game of the season, but he really started to unravel after the fourth inning. Credit to him for finding that extra gear and limiting the damage. You’ll ultimately take six innings and one run any day of the week. Again, I acknowledge how unfair it is that we pretty much expect seven scoreless from this guy every single time.
Assuming the rain holds off, we should have a pretty good pitching match-up tomorrow. Framber Valdez will take the mound for the Tigers, coming off an excellent start against the Kansas City Royals, and Garrett Crochet will be going for the Red Sox. Despite finishing second for the Cy Young a year ago, Crochet is coming off the worst start of his career against the Minnesota Twins.