​Detroit — Tarik Skubal has been a headline act at the All-Star Game for the past two years, and if you assume he’s counting down the days until a quieter moment in the spotlight this season, you’d be mistaken. “I would rather be there,” he said before the game on Saturday. “I don’t think you take any All-Star Game for granted. Just being in that room with that type of talent and being around those kinds of guys — yeah, they are extremely talented, but they also have some sort of edge that you can take away from them. I’d much rather be there, for sure.”
His absence from the All-Star roster this year came from a five-week layoff after a loose body was removed from his elbow. After he pitches in the finale against the Phillies on Sunday, he plans to stay around at Comerica Park and keep up his routine rather than heading back to Lakeland or elsewhere for a quicker departure. He’s expected to start the first game back after the break in Anaheim.
“I’ve had enough breaks this year,” Skubal said. “I don’t look forward to having any more breaks. I already had a vacation in Lakeland (rehab) that I didn’t really want.” Still, he’s eager to soak in the Philadelphia festivities this week by watching teammates Kevin McGonigle and Dillon Dingler, both making their All-Star debuts, along with Riley Greene.
“Those guys are extremely deserving,” Skubal said. “And I think it’s funny you saying Riley might be overlooked. It is boring when you go to three straight All-Star Games. You get bored of it, right?” The sarcasm was thick. “You’re not the new shiny thing anymore. Just Mr. Reliable. It’s going to be really boring when he gets 11 of them and that’s his career. And then it’s like, he’s had a great career but we’re sick of acknowledging his All-Star nods. You don’t take those things for granted, ever.” Point taken.
It’s fitting that Skubal closes out the first half of the season, a neat bookend since he started Opening Day in San Diego. More than that, it gives him a chance to punctuate the furious march back into contention the Tigers have staged since June 1—a run that aligns with Skubal essentially issuing a call to arms.
“My belief in this group has never changed,” he told The Detroit News last month. “But the reality is we need to play better baseball, or else come the deadline, you give the front office an option to reassess where this team is. And if they don’t think what we have is a World Series- or playoff-caliber team, then the whole team is going to look different. That’s just the nature of the beast.”
Entering play Saturday, the Tigers had won six in a row and were 22-12 since June 1. “I don’t know if me saying anything changed anything for better SEO,” he joked, a sign of the humor that threads through his seriousness about the team’s trajectory. The bigger message is clear: Skubal remains a central pillar of Detroit’s push to sustain momentum and threaten a meaningful late-season surge.