Tarik Skubal twirled another excellent outing on the mound on Sunday, but it was a bit hard to tell based on how the Detroit Tigers star pitcher assessed his performance against the Miami Marlins at Comerica Park in Detroit, Mich.
In his fourth start of the 2026 MLB season, the reigning two-time American League Cy Young Award winner held the Marlins to just a run on 2 hits, while issuing a pair of walks and striking out 7 hitters in 6 2/3 innings of an 8-2 Detroit victory.
“My stuff wasn’t good today,” Skubal said after his start, via Jason Beck of MLB.com. “My changeup needs to be better, and it will be better. That’s something that needs to get better. But my heater was good today in terms of execution. My spin was good enough. But my changeup needed to be better.
Skubal knows he can’t be at his best all the time, but many other pitchers would take his performance on Sunday at any given time.
“But those types of things that happen in baseball. It’s not always when you have your best stuff. If that was the case, it would be easy to predict our game. It’s just not like that,” added the 29-year-old Skubal, who improved to 2-2 with a 2.22 ERA.
The Tigers swept Miami in the three-game series and will next host the Kansas City Royals for a series that begins Tuesday.
