Dodgers squeak out just enough offense to win in Tarik Skubal’s return to Detroit

DETROIT — Tarik Skubal reached for the towel around his neck to wipe away the tears or maybe sweat as he walked in from the visitors’ bullpen at Comerica Park for the first time on Friday night.

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“I think I did cry watching the video. There were definitely tears,” Skubal admitted after the Dodgers’ 2-1 victory over the Detroit Tigers. “Luckily enough, I was able to make it to the tunnel before more happened.”

As that tribute video played on the scoreboard, he tapped his chest and pointed to his former teammates on the Detroit Tigers in the home dugout. After silly sports talk radio debate over whether to boo or cheer for the trade deadline evacuee Skubal filled the airwaves during the day, his reception was overwhelmingly positive.

Until he took the mound in the bottom of the first inning. Then boos – or were they “Skoob”s? – were gradually drowned out by more cheers.

“With the last name Skub, you don’t know if they are boos or if they’re cheering for you,” he joked. “So I’m gonna assume they were cheering for me.”

If the evening was difficult emotionally for Skubal, everything seems difficult for the Dodgers’ hitters these days. They managed to push across just two of the 20 baserunners they had against the Tigers, but that was enough to squeak out a 2-1 victory over the Tigers on homecoming night at Comerica Park.

“I think he embraced it,” Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman said of Skubal’s return – an emotional moment Freeman can relate to. “He left everything he had for this organization, multiple Cy Youngs, he left it all for them. I think that’s why he got so many cheers. I’m sure during the game they weren’t too thrilled with all the strikeouts he was racking up, but it’s hard to boo a man who gave you everything he had every five days.”

Everything the Dodgers’ offense has had recently – hasn’t been much.

While going 12-13 in the month of August, the Dodgers have averaged 3.88 runs per game. Take away the 24 they scored in three games at the offensive oasis known as Coors Field and that number shrinks to 3.32.

“We’re just going up and down,” Freeman said. “We’ve put together a few games in a row where it looks like us and then there’s a couple games where we run into some good pitching. You’ve got to sometimes give credit to the other side too. But we know we got a good team, good offense and hopefully we can start clicking here shortly.

“We keep getting those opportunities, but ultimately we’ve got to cash those in. We haven’t done that in the last few days but we’re all optimistic around here if we can keep creating these opportunities, at some point as good as we are we’ll get those hits.”

Skubal gave up a leadoff double in the first inning then gave the Tigers a review of their recent past, retiring the next 12 batters in order (six on strikeouts).

Eduardo Valencia ended that with a leadoff double in the fifth inning. He was still on second base with two outs when Skubal got ahead of Tigers prodigy Max Clark. The left-handed Clark got his bat on a 99-mph fastball from Skubal and lined it inside the third-base line and into the left-field corner for an RBI triple.

That was the only damage the Tigers inflicted on their former ace before Dave Roberts pulled him after six innings and, surprisingly, only 83 pitches.

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“Of course, I did want to go back out there. Those decisions aren’t my decisions,” Skubal said. “Doc kind of came to me and said we’ve got a long road. He said he’s kind of pushed me recently (109 and 106 pitches in his previous two starts). I don’t know if ‘Play it safe’ is the right word, because obviously I feel good to go. But we got a little bit more before we start pushing again. So that’s kind of the conversation that I had. But I felt good to go. I felt like I was still in control of the baseball game at the time.”

The Dodgers’ offense had nine baserunners to work with in their first five innings (four singles and five walks). But all that kindling sparked nothing. They hit into two ground plays, Max Muncy struck out with the bases loaded and two outs in the sixth and, Kyle Tucker was thrown out trying to score from second on Kiké Hernandez’s sixth-inning single.

Two batters later, Miguel Rojas came off the bench to end a 16-inning scoreless drought by the Dodgers with a game-tying RBI single.

When the Dodgers stranded the bases loaded again in the seventh inning, they had managed just one run in their previous 18 innings while stranding 26 runners on base.

Freeman was having none of that in the eighth inning.

Teoscar Hernandez led off with a single. Ben Rortvedt bunted him to second and Hernandez moved to third on a ground out – putting him in excellent position to become yet another LOB. But Freeman sent a first-pitch fastball from Tigers reliever Jacob Waguespack back where it came from, driving in the go-ahead run with a single through the middle.

“We grounded into a couple double plays. We had opportunities, which is part of the equation, and we just couldn’t finish some of these innings,” Roberts said. “But I think today, it’s just one of those things. I’m just happy we came out of it with a W.”

On their way to their fourth consecutive one-run decision and 14th this month – the first win this week – the Dodgers got three innings of shutout relief from Evan Phillips, Brock Stewart, Alex Vesia and Tanner Scott.

It wasn’t without peril. The Tigers put runners on the corners with two outs in the eighth against Stewart. Vesia came in and got Kevin McGonigle on a 403-foot fly out to the deepest part of center field.

Pitching for the third time in four games on this trip – he gave up the deciding run in the first two – Scott retired the side in the ninth to close it out.

Afterward, Skubal met some of his former teammates on the field as the crowd filed out. They have all been “pretty supportive,” he said, but his focus is on the future not the past.

“I haven’t really thought about it too much,” he said when asked to assess his days in Detroit. “Obviously getting traded, I’m trying to throw myself into being an L.A. Dodger. Get to know this team and get to know this staff and get to know everything, get settled in with everybody here, and then go out and compete and try to win as many baseball games as I can here. There hasn’t been a ton of thinking back to my time in Detroit.”

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