If this really was Tarik Skubal’s last start at Comerica Park in a Tigers uniform, it felt like the entire trade debate was condensed into one afternoon.

He didn’t waste any time setting the tone. One strikeout to open the game — a changeup to Taylor Ward — and the crowd was already on their feet, celebrating him becoming the fastest pitcher in franchise history to reach 1,000 career strikeouts. By the seventh inning, they were standing again, this time with a different kind of awareness. Skubal was coming out of the game, and nobody was sure they’d get another chance to thank him in person. He tipped his cap, acknowledged the moment, and headed back to the dugout with Detroit comfortably ahead, 7-1.

And then everything unraveled.

What should have been a straightforward win turned into a 10-9 loss, and it happened fast. Skubal had been dominant for six scoreless innings before finally giving up a run in the seventh. From there, the bullpen took over — and that didn't go well. Kyle Finnegan came in, couldn’t stop the bleeding, and suddenly a game that felt over wasn’t over at all. Baltimore chipped away, then tied it, then kept going.

Detroit tried to answer. Spencer Torkelson’s 100th career home run briefly pushed them back in front in the 11th, but even that wasn’t enough. The Orioles kept coming, and the Tigers simply ran out of answers.

When it was all over, the box score said Skubal allowed three earned runs in 6 2/3 innings. On paper, that’s what it shows. In reality, it doesn’t come close to telling the story. He left with a six-run lead. The Tigers still lost.

The Collapse Was Too Perfect

There were a few moments Wednesday where the whole afternoon really could’ve turned into one of those clean, feel-good baseball stories. The kind where everyone leaves the park talking about the ace, the milestone, and the run he’s been on in Detroit.

Skubal hitting 1,000 strikeouts in just 857 innings was one of those moments. That’s faster than Max Scherzer did it in a Tigers uniform, and faster than anyone else in franchise history. He’s now just the 17th pitcher ever in Detroit to reach that mark.

This is a ninth-round pick. He debuted in a mostly empty stadium during COVID. Then he goes through elbow surgery, comes back, and somehow turns into this — a guy who doesn’t just survive at the big-league level, but dominates it? That's rare.

After the game, Skubal talked about what this means to him:

Hopefully they feel like I’ve given everything to the team, to the city, because I truly have.

And watching him pitch, it’s hard to feel like that’s anything but the truth. He’s not a guy who’s ever felt like he was coasting or mailing it in. Even when things around him have been messy, he’s been the constant.

And the production backs it all up in a big way. He won the pitching Triple Crown and a unanimous Cy Young in 2024, dragging Detroit into the postseason before anyone expected them to be there. Then he somehow follows it up with an even better year in a lot of ways — a 2.21 ERA, 241 strikeouts, and another Cy Young in 2025. In the postseason that followed, he posted a 1.74 ERA with 36 strikeouts in just over 20 innings.

And still, Detroit went home in the ALDS both years.

That part isn’t really on him. There’s no shame in losing a short series, especially when the 2024 team was basically playing with house money just to be there. The issue is what happened after it became clear that this wasn’t just a cute underdog story anymore — it was a real window.

By July 2025, the Tigers had the best record in baseball at 59-34. At one point they were up 15½ games in the divisionand looked like they were cruising toward their first AL Central title since 2014. That’s the moment where front offices are supposed to go all-in — not recklessly, but decisively. You don’t get many chances to build around a pitcher like Skubal when he’s this good, this cheap, and this locked in.

Instead, Scott Harris mostly tinkered around the edges. Detroit brought in veteran arms at the deadline — Chris Paddack, Charlie Morton, Kyle Finnegan, Rafael Montero, Paul Sewald — but never really added the impact bat the lineup was screaming for.

And the pitching help didn’t really stabilize anything. Paddack struggled, Morton eventually got designated for assignment, and the whole thing unraveled in a way nobody in that clubhouse saw coming. The Tigers went 7-17 in September and lost the AL Central by a single game. They only made the playoffs at all because of the expanded format.

They did bounce back enough to beat Cleveland in the Wild Card Series, but the same issues showed up again against Seattle. The offense just didn’t have enough. Skubal went out and struck out 13 in the deciding ALDS game, and Detroit still lost 3-2 in 15 innings after going 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position.

So they came into this offseason knowing exactly what the problem was. The offense had gone quiet far too often. The bullpen wasn’t reliable. And Skubal was heading into his final year before free agency.

The response? They kept Gleyber Torres on a qualifying offer and then doubled down on pitching...

Framber Valdez got three years, $115 million. Verlander came back on a one-year deal. Kenley Jansen and Finnegan were added to shore up the late innings. On paper, it looked like a rotation and bullpen built to win right now — deep, experienced, and expensive.

But there was one glaring omission: they didn’t add a bat. Not a real one. Not the kind that changes how opposing teams pitch you in October.

By July 8th, the Tigers were already leading the American League with 19 blown saves. A lot of those were coming from the very relievers they brought in to stabilize things — Vest, Jansen, Finnegan, Anderson. The same group that was supposed to shorten games was turning them into coin flips.

And then, just to really underline the point, Finnegan and Anderson combined to blow a six-run lead in what might end up being Skubal’s final start in Detroit.

Detroit Never Prioritized Skubal’s Future

The roster problem gets a lot harder to ignore when you line it up next to how the Tigers handled Skubal’s contract situation.

After winning his first Cy Young, Skubal settled for $10.15 million in 2025. Then he went out and did it again — another dominant, Cy Young-level season — and this time he filed for $32 million in his final year of arbitration. Detroit came in at $19 million, which created a massive $13 million gap and sent their two-time reigning Cy Young winner into a hearing.

And he won. The panel sided with Skubal and gave him the full $32 million, setting a new arbitration record in the process.

Now, arbitration is just business. The Tigers were working within the system, and plenty of teams go through this kind of thing. But it still feels a little off when the best pitcher the organization has developed since Verlander has to sit in a room where the whole argument is basically, “Here’s why you’re not worth what you think you are.”

What made it even more notable is what didn’t come after. There was no long-term extension offer that came out of it. Skubal said during spring training there wasn’t anything on the table and that he was just going to play the year out and deal with everything after the season.

That didn’t automatically mean he was gone. Scott Boras clients usually like to hit free agency anyway, and Skubal checks every box teams dream about — age, dominance, durability, scarcity. Detroit might've just realized that even a strong offer might not have changed where this was headed.

But they still let it ride all the way into his final year without a real resolution.

Then came the elbow surgery in May, and the Tigers completely fell apart without him. Skubal came back just 38 days after the procedure and, almost annoyingly, looked like himself immediately. After Wednesday, he’s sitting at a 2.79 ERA, a 0.91 WHIP, and 116 strikeouts in 96 2/3 innings. Basically: nothing really changed.

A Trade Would Be The Receipt

Trading Skubal wouldn’t erase what the Tigers accomplished with him, and it shouldn’t. He helped snap a decade-long playoff drought, won two Cy Young Awards, and turned himself into the kind of October weapon every contender dreams about but almost never actually finds.

The Tigers really did find that piece. They took a ninth-round pick and developed him into the best pitcher in baseball while Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson, Dillon Dingler, Kevin McGonigle, and the rest of their young core started filtering in around him. They made the playoffs twice before Skubal even hit free agency. They even pushed payroll into a new tier when it was time to try to take the next step.

And yet, for all of that progress, they never quite built a team that could stand on their own when Skubal wasn’t the one holding everything together.

That was basically the story again on Wednesday. Detroit gave him seven runs, which in any normal world should’ve been more than enough to cruise. He walked off to another standing ovation. And then almost immediately, the bullpen flipped the game on its head.

Now the Tigers are staring at the possibility that their biggest success story of the rebuild might also become their biggest trade chip.

And if this really was it, if that was the last time he takes the mound at Comerica Park in a Tigers uniform, then the hardest part isn’t going to be the idea of him leaving.

It’s going to be realizing he gave them everything they needed to build something real, and somehow his final start there still ended up showing just how fragile the whole thing around him has been.

All stats courtesy of MLB.com.

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