Detroit Tigers: Tarik Skubal is picking up where he left off

The Detroit Tigers are off and running for the 2022 season. Two starts in, young arm Tarik Skubal is looking stellar on the mound for the team early on. In the absence of other prospect arms in Casey Mize and Matt Manning.

The Detroit Tigers are without their other two young arms, leaving Skubal in the rotation to strut his stuff. He’s been quality through two starts with quality lines to show for it. It’s early, but the Tigers should be happy with his output so far.

After an average first start of the season against the Chicago White Sox, followed up with a quality outing against the Kansas City Royals, he’s off and running. Skubal’s outing against the Royals saw him throw 5.2 innings pitched, surrendering four hits, allowing no walks, striking out seven batters, and allowing zero runs.

The Tigers should be excited for Skubal to be picking up where he left off in 2021. He sputtered a little bit out of the gates last season but was able to get things going and end up finishing strong by the end of the season.

Detroit Tigers southpaw Tarik Skubal is picking up where he left off.

The Tigers have seen Skubal end up becoming much better than was anticipated. While I have had my moments, I did suggest that Skubal is more of an ace than Casey Mize. Looking back, it seems pretty clear that Skubal will be subpar to Mize.

However, there’s a lot of excitement about what Skubal can bring. Being a comfortable number two or three starter in the rotation is a quality assumption for him. He’s coming off of a 2021 season that saw him accrue 149.1 innings pitched over 29 starts.

Over those 29 starts and 31 appearances, he would add 164 strikeouts to his resume as well. It was a quality sophomore campaign for the youngster, and as early as it is in 2022, he’s got the potential to anchor down the middle of the team’s rotation.

As the Tigers will be in a much more competitive light in 2022, Skubal needs to keep up the performance that he had last season. It’s too early to know how the rest of the season will shake out, but it initially looks like he’s going to be exceptional.

With some fine-tuning to his pitch mix and changes made with Chris Fetter, Skubal will likely be able to become the pitcher the Tigers are hoping for. Like I’ve said, it’s early, but Skubal’s stuff has looked great in 2022.