Why Justin Verlander respects Tarik Skubal's dominance: ‘His last start was kind of eye-opening'

New York Times

6 days ago

DETROIT — Over the weekend, Justin Verlander caught wind of Tarik Skubal's masterclass shutout. He checked the box score, saw the nine innings, the 13 strikeouts, the remarkable pitch count of 94.
He wanted to see some of the outing for himself. So he called up the highlights.
'Really, his last start was kind of eye-opening,' Verlander said Wednesday in Detroit.
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This time last year, Verlander admitted he had not watched Skubal closely enough to offer any honest evaluation. But the Tigers current ace caught the attention of the franchise's former top starter after his dominance rolled on through the summer. Skubal won the Cy Young Award. He became the first American League starter to win the pitching Triple Crown in a full season since Verlander in 2011.
When the Tigers played the Giants in two exhibition games before the season in San Francisco, Verlander saw Skubal standing in the outfield. He ventured over to introduce himself.
'I've become a fan of his,' Verlander said. 'I wanted to go say hi and congratulate him on a great start to his career.'
What was that like for Skubal?
'You're a little starstruck, honestly,' Skubal said before the finale of a three-game series against the Giants. 'What he means to this organization and what he's accomplished in his career, he's a Hall of Famer and he's been doing it for a long time. When you're in my shoes, you strive to be who he is. I think that's pretty cool.'
Before he was among baseball's elite starters, Skubal was an avid fan of the game. He knows its history, understands the standard for greatness. One day at his locker last season, he pulled up Verlander's baseball-reference page on his phone, scrolled through the years and marveled at the longevity and year-by-year excellence.
Strange, then, to realize Verlander is watching him similar to the way he's watched Verlander for so many seasons.
'How many years has he played?' Skubal said. 'Eighteen, 20 years? I've had 20 years of it. I'm 28. He got to watch one day of mine. I've got to watch 18 years of his. Comparison, we can say Tigers ace then, Tigers ace now. I don't think I've accomplished anything that he has. That's what gives you motivation to put your head down and go to work. It's cool, though, that he says those things about me.'
Skubal has years to go before even sniffing Verlander's career achievements. But he's quickly entering similar territory in terms of being a fan favorite and must-see event any time he starts. Fans chanted his name during the ninth inning of his shutout.
'It reminds me, in my time, of going into Comerica and getting a young Justin Verlander, who was trying to literally embarrass you every time up,' former big-leaguer Mark DeRosa said on MLB Network.
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Verlander is glad to see other young pitchers emerging. Paul Skenes is on his way. Gerrit Cole is an established star. But as Verlander, Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw near the ends of their careers, how many pitchers will break through as true household names?
'Since me, Max, Kershaw, I don't know if anybody else has done that,' Verlander said. 'Chris Sale, maybe?'
Part of the issue, in Verlander's estimation, is the obvious safeguards on starting pitching. Skubal has already endured Tommy John surgery and a flexor tendon repair. Even Verlander had Tommy John surgery in 2020. Baseball's injury epidemic is part of the equation. But the days of Verlander's youth, playing for Jim Leyland, trudging deep into games and sometimes even getting banged around while doing it, are in the past.
Verlander has thrown 26 complete games in his career. Skubal has one.
'You have to do some really cool s— as a starter,' Verlander said. 'In today's game, you're not really afforded that opportunity very often. Most guys, they're getting pulled at the fifth or sixth inning, not going deep into games and not really doing anything that makes headlines. Your team wins. You did an OK job. But you're not getting shown on ESPN and all the national news outlets to make a name for yourself, because you're not really doing anything.'
In baseball, the competition starts with the man on the mound. The game is played, first and foremost, in the strike zone. But, if you don't count Shohei Ohtani, there is not a single starting pitcher among MLB's best-selling jerseys. There are only three — Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Clayton Kershaw and Skenes — inside the top 20.
In free agency, starting pitchers are still a valued commodity. Verlander is making $15 million at age 42, coming off a season where injuries limited him to only 90 ⅓ innings. But the extinction of the workhorse starter is a frequent topic in the game, and one Verlander is particularly passionate about.
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In a way, then, there's validation in seeing another young Tigers starter pitch well enough, perhaps, to carry on a legacy.
'I do appreciate seeing him go deeper in games and wanting to do that,' Verlander said. 'I think as a starting pitcher, for me, getting deep in games was something I always tried to do. It was less about I want to have zero runs given up and more about going deep in the game. You sacrifice sometimes. If your team scores six runs early in a game, I'm attacking. I'm sure he does the same.'
Skubal threw 192 innings in the regular season last year. Verlander, meanwhile, has surpassed 200 innings 12 times in his career. Skubal has talked openly about wanting to be a pitcher who can push past that 200-inning threshold.
'The job is to pitch as deep into every start that I got,' Skubal said this spring, 'and make the job hard on A.J. (Hinch) to take me out of the game. Two hundred innings, it doesn't just happen. … But yeah, 200 innings, those are kind of the horses around the league that do that, and I want to be one of those guys.'
The fact Skubal threw a complete game does not mean he's being used in the way Verlander once was. Skubal went nine innings because his pitch count was within reason.
'Look,' Hinch said, 'if guys want to enter the ninth inning with 85 pitches, I promise you I will leave guys in the game.'
There are different circumstances, and this is a different era. But in terms of the excitement and electricity, the parallels between Verlander and Skubal are obvious. Tigers fans have started debating. Who is better? Skubal right now? Or Verlander at his peak?
'To me, if I'm the Tigers and I've got the best pitcher in baseball, I want that mother—— out there as long as possible,' Verlander said. 'Ride that horse. Hell yeah. That's the way I felt about it when I was pitching. They're like, 'You're our guy, we want you every fifth day.' They would skip the fifth starter. We have an extra off days, and it's like, 'Hey, how you feeling?' … I feel good. It was fine. It was great. It was awesome. And I loved it.'