How Detroit Tigers' Tarik Skubal matured into an Opening Day ace

Tarik Skubal spent three days in the hospital.

An exhausting three days trapped in a hospital felt like three weeks. He couldn't wait to get out of there and finally take his family home, but he wouldn't trade the memories of those three days for the world.

A life-changing moment happened.

His son, Kasen Tyler Skubal, was born Oct. 18, 2023.

"It was emotional," Skubal said. "I can literally picture being in the room. My wife, she's incredible."

His son's first MLB game is a big one.

That's because Skubal, a first-time father and a left-handed pitcher, is starting his first Opening Day for the Detroit Tigers on Thursday against the Chicago White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field — the beginning of what could be a special season. The 27-year-old has gained traction as an under-the-radar American League Cy Young candidate, but he isn't obsess about labels. He is determined to pitch in the postseason in search of winning the World Series.

"I'm so proud of him always," said Jessica Skubal, Tarik's wife since November 2021. "I'm so proud of the dad he is, the person he is and the baseball player he is."

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Jessica has been by Tarik's side forever.

They started dating as juniors in high school in Kingman, Arizona.

In the summer of 2017, a college-aged Skubal traveled 400 miles roundtrip each week — more than eight hours — from his hometown in Kingman to a facility in Phoenix as he rehabbed from Tommy John surgery (his first of two elbow surgeries). He drove there on Monday mornings and back on Fridays.

Skubal comes from humble beginnings.

Jessica, then his girlfriend, let him drive her brand-new car, a Dodge Dart. She also packed his lunches for the week and got him the family rate at the hotel because she worked for a hotel company, all so her future husband could save money.

"I enjoyed it, weirdly enough," said Skubal, who attended Seattle University. "When you're in the moment, you don't really know any better. Looking back, would I do that again? No, but I did it."

He put 12,000 miles on her new car that summer.

She didn't complain.

"Anything we could do to get him access to better facilities, we were willing to do it to help him achieve whatever he wanted," Jessica said, "so that was the motivation behind it. My mom would take me to work or my grandma would give me her car. We just made whatever work."

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Desert learning

The trips from Kingman to Phoenix introduced Skubal to Justin Wakefield, a close friend to this day.

Wakefield is Skubal's trainer at Phoenix's APEX Performance Facility during the offseason, but in the summer of 2017, Wakefield met Skubal for the first time and helped him finish his rehab from Tommy John surgery.

Except Wakefield wasn't supposed to work with Skubal.

"I was working at a place called Fischer Institute at the time," Wakefield said. "I ran the MLB and NFL side of things, as well as the return to sport. They offered him to another strength coach, and it ended up that he had a packed schedule and didn't have time, so they asked if I wanted to train him."

Skubal never stopped training with Wakefield.

He returned to Wakefield's facility after the Tigers drafted him in the ninth round in 2018 and gave him about 20 innings in the lower levels of the minor leagues. Skubal was virtually unknown in baseball circles, but Wakefield asked him to join an offseason workout group with fellow professional baseball players to prepare for his first full season in the minors.

All of the players were of a higher status with more experience.

Skubal felt honored to join the group.

"All those guys had already played professional baseball," Skubal said. "Whether they realized it or not, I was looking at what they were doing in how they prepared to play pro ball. I needed to put the work in."

One of the players in the group: Bobby Dalbec, a 2016 fourth-round pick of the Boston Red Sox after his college career as an infielder and pitcher for the University of Arizona.

Dalbec remembers meeting Skubal for the first time.

"He was a big, goofy left-handed pitcher," Dalbec said.

Skubal and Dalbec developed a close friendship in the offseason workout group, so much so that Dalbec taught Skubal his changeup while playing catch.

The changeup was Dalbec's best pitch throughout more than 200 innings for the Wildcats in NCAA play.

"Dude, how do you throw that?" Skubal asked.

Dalbec showed him the grip.

"That's how the changeup became the changeup," Skubal said. "I've tinkered with it, but it's the same grip. I just put my pressure points on different spots."

Skubal, who had the second-best changeup among starting pitchers last season based on swing-and-miss rate, almost always dominates when he is confident throwing his changeup in any count to right-handed hitters. He likes to bully opponents with his high-velocity fastball, but when he has his best changeup, he has his best performances.

Dalbec thinks Skubal can win the Cy Young in 2024.

"He's got the shit for it, that's for sure," said Dalbec, who left pitching behind for a full-time role as a corner infielder with the Red Sox. "Staying healthy is huge for him, and he's got a good home park to pitch in, not that it matters really because he's got swing-and-miss stuff. If he stays healthy and stays in the moment, I think anything could happen with that guy."

So does Wakefield.

"I don't think there's a limit to where he can go," Wakefield said. "If anybody can do it, it's him. He's becoming what maybe was just a dream at one time. I think he truly, in his heart, believes that he belongs."

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A beer for every strikeout

It's not just Dalbec and Wakefield.

The handful of baseball players who train in the offseason group at APEX Performance Facility, co-founded by Wakefield and Wes Budge, became a part of Skubal's support system, both on and off the field. The guys stay in touch throughout the season in a group chat, which gets flooded with videos of home runs and strikeouts.

"There's that weird, awkward stage when you first get with those guys," Skubal said, "like when you first join a new team, and then it clicks, and you're boys forever."

Wakefield, in particular, tried to help Skubal manage the ups and downs early in his career. Skubal made his MLB debut in 2020, and in the first couple of years, Wakefield recognized his client and friend battling a learning curve at the highest level. Wakefield created a Skubal strikeout challenge before one of his games to lighten the mood and encourage better results.

Wakefield decided to chug a beer for every strikeout.

Skubal racked up the strikeouts and got video proof.

"I had to send him every one of them," said Wakefield, who had "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC playing in the background. "He had me sideways."

"Good day or bad day, you have one strikeout, it's still them wherever they're at chugging a White Claw or whatever the hell it is," said Skubal, who struck out 102 batters in 15 starts last season. "That's the support they got for all their guys, too. I think that's special in itself."

Wakefield doesn't drink to Skubal strikeouts anymore, but he still posts every Skubal strikeout on his Instagram story to the tune of "Thunderstruck." He always tags each person in Skubal's support system from the offseason workout group.

After each start, Skubal checks his phone and watches the videos.

"It evolved into our joke, but also our way to fire each other up," Wakefield said. "It stuck around because I wanted him to remember that in good games and bad games, we're all still going to be here cheering for him, and we're all still watching the game, and we're all just stoked that he's out there."

Until he wasn't out there.

Skubal underwent flexor tendon surgery, his second elbow surgery in six years, in August 2022. He returned to the Tigers in July 2023 — a late start to his fourth MLB season — and implemented adjustments he made to his mechanics, workout routine and pitch mix while rehabbing.

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So far, so good. In 2023, Skubal posted a 2.80 ERA with 14 walks and 102 strikeouts across 80⅓ innings in 15 starts.

He was worth 3.3 fWAR from his July 4 return until the Oct. 1 season finale, tops among all pitchers over that span. He won AL Pitcher of the Month for his five-start performance in September, posting a 0.90 ERA with four walks and 43 strikeouts across 30 innings, capped by a scoreless streak of 11 innings that he'll bring into his first Opening Day start.

Becoming a family man

His closest supporter treasured the comeback season in her heart.

"I loved it for him," Jessica said. "I watch his hard work. I watch him choose the right meals to eat. I see that he gets up and goes to the gym when probably nobody else would. It's stuff like that. It makes me happy to see him succeed because I know what goes into it. ... Every step of the way, he's worked himself to where he's at, so I feel like he's earned everything he's gotten, plus more."

Skubal is fierce on the mound, but everywhere else, he is mellow.

When Skubal isn't striking out big-league hitters, he is navigating life as a father for the first time. He is thankful for his wife because she "takes care of literally everything in my life" so he can focus on baseball.

But he flips the mental switch — pitcher to dad — when he's at home.

"I think there is a little bit more meaning to the game," Skubal said. "There's a little bit more motivation to continue to work. I'm making sacrifices. I would love to be at home with my kid year-round. Everyone would, right? But I'm making sacrifices, and it's for him, so there's some more motivation when it comes to doing tedious tasks. It reminds you of why you're doing it. I guess I have a little bit more of a why."

He doesn't cry very often, but he cried in his college pitching coach's office when he found out he needed Tommy John surgery in 2016, and he cried in the delivery room when he became a father in 2023. Those were two of the most emotional moments on Skubal's journey from an unknown ninth-round pick to one of the best pitchers in baseball.

He reflected on the lessons learned along the way.

"This game will eat you up if you let it," he said. "If you let a bad outing stay with you, it will eat you up, swallow you and spit you out. This game does not care. It's being able to separate that. Good days or bad days, ride the highs, accept the lows, accept failure and move on, not being afraid to fail. What's the worst thing that's going to happen? I'm not going to get out of the first inning and give up seven runs. I know that sucks for the team, and I know that's not what I want to do. But is my family OK? Is my life OK? Is my wife OK? Do my friends still love me? Yeah, I have all of those things, so I get to go out there and play pretty free."

This is the guy who received unconditional love from his wife in college, battled back from two elbow surgeries, thrived in a workout group filled with lifelong friends, learned his elite changeup from an AL East slugger and, just recently, got a new perspective on baseball when he became a father.

Skubal is ready for his first Opening Day start.

"I can live with whatever happens if I go out there and compete with every pitch," he continued. "It's hard to do that for 100 pitches. There are a bunch of scenarios that will be thrown at you in the game. Errors, soft contact, ball through a hole, broken bat, bunt. There are a lot of things that can take my focus away, but if I can just channel that focus and live pitch by pitch and try to execute every pitch that's called, it's going to be a good day regardless of what the stat line says."

Did Skubal think like that four years ago?

"(Expletive) no," he said.

That says a lot, right?

"Yeah, it does," Skubal said. "There's a lot of growth in this game. I'm not saying I'm this experienced, veteran pitcher, but me as a rookie, I was in a much different place than I am right now. I'm much more confident in myself, but I'm also more relaxed. I felt like I was trying to prove myself to everybody, and now, I don't feel like I have to do that."

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tarik Skubal's epic journey to Detroit Tigers' Opening Day