Subscribe
Follow Us
Tarik Skubal is scheduled to start Game 5 of the American League Division Series against the Cleveland Guardians Saturday. While the Detroit Tigers star pitcher has clearly shown the ability to focus on shutting down opponents throughout the season, doing it in a win or go home game is something that the ace left-handed pitcher has not faced to this point.
Tarik Daniel!!
— Laura Skubal (@lskubal) October 7, 2024
While he has spent the off-day preparing for the task at hand and answering questions from the media, he has had something of a distraction to contend with. Skubal's mother, Laura Skubal, sent a message to her son that he should tone down his language. She does not like to see her son curse when he is in a game. He apparently did just that in Game 2 when Skubal and the Tigers shut down the Guardians in a 7-0 shutout triumph.
She couldn't hear her son, but Laura Skubal was obviously able to read lips. Her message was delivered through X when she said his name the way mothers do when they are disapprove of their child's behavior. “Tarik Daniel,” she posted.
Skubal is not necessarily going to follow his mother's language directions. Instead, he was able to come up with a counter to her directive when he met with reporters.
Skubal has words of his own for his mother
Basically, Skubal said he was just following her example. Skubal said that when his mother was a high school basketball player, she got ejected from a number of games for the things she said to officials.
“Yeah, that's interesting that my mom went to Twitter (X) to say that because you should hear my mom when she was growing up,” he said. “I think that's interesting, yeah, that she wants to make that comment. I've seen her get ejected out of plenty of high school basketball games. So I guess it might run in the family a little bit there.”
Aside from rejecting the motherly advice, Skubal knows he has to come up with another brilliant effort to give the Tigers their best chance of winning the final game of the series and advancing to the American League Championship Series. The winner of Saturday's decisive game will play the Yankees for the right to represent the American League in the World Series.
Skubal is the odds-on favorite to win the Cy Young Award in the American League. He had a remarkable 18-4 record with a 2.39 earned run average while striking out 228 hitters in 192.0 innings. He started 31 games this season and 22 of them were considered quality starts.
Skubal has been even better in the postseason He has pitched 13.0 innings and he has not given up an earned run. He has 14 strikeouts in 13.0 innings.
