Add The California Post on Google At the beginning of Saturday’s game, Tarik Skubal suffered his worst inning as a member of the Dodgers.
By the end of the team’s eventual 4-3 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates, however, the marquee trade deadline acquisition had rebounded for perhaps his best start with the club.
Despite giving up three runs in a first inning full of less-than-fortunate contact on mostly well-executed pitches, Skubal did not waver in his fourth start with the Dodgers. Even after two more tough-luck singles to begin the second, he did not fret in the face of an early deficit.
Instead, in the kind of dominant flurry the team has been waiting to see out of the reigning two-time Cy Young Award winner, Skubal rediscovered a “standard” that he said had been missing in his first couple weeks since joining the team.
“I’m not going to be perfect out there, but yeah, I need to be more efficient,” Skubal said last week, after failing to pitch into the seventh inning in each of his first three appearances with the Dodgers. “That’s the standard that I hold myself to, is pitching deeper into ballgames. Giving our team a chance to win every time out.”
Right on cue, that’s what Skubal did in what turned into a seven-inning, three-run, 11-strikeout performance on Sunday –– finally finding a rhythm just when it appeared his game might go off the rails.
The left-hander stranded runners at second and third in the second inning by getting his first two strikeouts of the day, turning to his slider for each after struggling to get early whiff with his trademark changeup.
From there, the momentum kept building. He retired the side in order in both the third and fourth with a pair of Ks each. He worked around a two-out walk in the fifth while dialing up a couple more punchouts. Then, he reached top gear in the top of the sixth, striking out the side in a breathtaking 14-pitch sequence that was punctuated by a 100 mph fastball –– his hardest pitch with the Dodgers, and second-hardest all season.
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The Dodgers’ offense, meanwhile, clawed its way back to give Skubal a lead.
In the fourth, Teoscar Hernández and newly recalled Alek Thomas (who was summoned from triple-A prgame to replace the injured Andy Pages) strung together back-to-back RBI singles against Pirates Jared Jones.
Then, in the fifth, Kyle Tucker ended his historic home-field hitting drought, snapping a 26-at-bat hitless streak at Dodger Stadium (which dated back to Aug. 2) with a two-run single through a drawn-in infield (giving him his first RBIs at the venue since July 8).
Skubal made sure to lock down the 4-3 advantage, finishing his 106-pitch outing with one more 1-2-3 inning in the seventh.
Overall, he retired 18 of the final 19 batters he faced, finished one strikeout away from his season-high of 12, and –– for the first time since his blockbuster arrival before the trade deadline –– flashed the sort of sustained dominance that has made him arguably the sport’s best current pitcher.
All it took was overcoming his worst inning along the way.
