06/24/2026 6:40p EDT New York Yankees at Detroit Tigers

[monkeytargets39]

[Crazy Cat Gentleman]

nice to see that De Jesus can give up a double and not turn into horrible De Jesus.

[IdahoBert]

Had three innings of scoreless relief. At least there’s that. 

[gehringer_2]

win or go home, they now have no catcher

[Crazy Cat Gentleman]

bah

[romad1]

****

[gehringer_2]

it's always a kind of fail when the winning runs are scored by the last batter faced by your starter and you already had guys up in the BP. It's not like you weren't ready to take him out, you just missed the window.

[kdog]

This is why you can't go 6-21....I'm not upset about these losses. They can't handle a decent lefty starter with what they have. The Yankees won two low event games with slugging. Tigers countered with station to station.

[Sports_Freak]

15 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

win or go home, they now have no catcher

Dingler woulda gone to catcher and we lose the DH. Leyland did that once..

[SoCalTiger]

So are we 0-3 in Skubal’s three starts since coming back ?

[Tenacious D]

17 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

So are we 0-3 in Skubal’s three starts since coming back ?

Not Skubal’s fault—he has pitched reasonably well, but not yet his Cy Young form. Let’s hope that surfaces soon.

[Tiger337]

49 minutes ago, kdog said:

This is why you can't go 6-21....I'm not upset about these losses. They can't handle a decent lefty starter with what they have. The Yankees won two low event games with slugging. Tigers countered with station to station.

They are 12-8 in June.  If they play that way the rest of the way, they would win 83 games.  That might be good enough to make the playoffs in the weak AL.  The problem is that they have dug such a deep hole that they might not get sufficiently back into the race before the deadline.  I am hoping that they will.  

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

They are 12-8 in June.  If they play that way the rest of the way, they would win 83 games.  That might be good enough to make the playoffs in the weak AL.  The problem is that they have dug such a deep hole that they might not get sufficiently back into the race before the deadline.  I am hoping that they will.  

I don't see the getting them past the inevitable games with 4+ runs given up. 550 the rest of the way maybe.

[casimir]

9 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

They are 12-8 in June.  If they play that way the rest of the way, they would win 83 games.  That might be good enough to make the playoffs in the weak AL.  The problem is that they have dug such a deep hole that they might not get sufficiently back into the race before the deadline.  I am hoping that they will.  

Teams have played to a .600 clip over the course of a season.  That's 97 wins.  Its just tough to see this team playing .600 ball going forward.  Not impossible, but tough to see it.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, casimir said:

Teams have played to a .600 clip over the course of a season.  That's 97 wins.  Its just tough to see this team playing .600 ball going forward.  Not impossible, but tough to see it.

this - they either need a much better BP or a higher team OBP/OPS to get to that that kind of winning %. Maybe it's possible the 6th starter goes to the pen and becomes Mario Rivera V2.0, but I don't see any scenario where the offense suddenly gets a lot better.

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, casimir said:

Teams have played to a .600 clip over the course of a season.  That's 97 wins.  Its just tough to see this team playing .600 ball going forward.  Not impossible, but tough to see it.

No, It's not likely but it's plausible given that they have had long stretches of .600 ball each of the last two seasons and the American League is very weak this year.  

[chasfh]

In some ways Skubal is even better now than before the injury. He's getting more swinging strikes and chases outside the zone, and they're making less contact on his pitches both in and out of the zone. His K% is up and his BB% is down. Even his velocity has ticked up a bit. As a result his xFIP is down a touch from before (2.61 before, 2.55 now).

The reason we don't really see that is that his HR/FB has exploded. It was 6.3% before the injury—now it's 37.5%. Obviously unsustainable, and it almost certainly won't continue that way, but that might be why we don't think he's exactly looking like Cy Young. Coupled with a much higher fly ball rate (38% now vs 29% before), and that makes it look like he's getting clobbered, and in that narrow sense, he is. But that's due to one part of his game failing him even though the rest of his game is solid. 

He's also being managed more carefully, seeing six innings only once of his three starts versus five times in seven starts before, so that might also be coloring our impression that's he might have lost a step since before the injury.

If he merely maintains his process stats and his HR/FB comes down to normal levels, people will start talking about his Cy Young stuff again.

[gehringer_2]

7 hours ago, chasfh said:

The reason we don't really see that is that his HR/FB has exploded. I

looking at the three yesterday, the first to Goldschmidt was not a terrible pitch but not a great one either. It was up and in but not really enough of either. The second one was a good pitch - curve at the bottom of the zone - and Goldschmidt just beat him. The last one was a terrible hanging change dead middle/middle that Dominguez was probably sitting on since Skub was missing with the heater. 

Edited June 25 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

looking at the three yest

Exactly. Regardless of his willingness to accept heat for the outcomes, it's pretty much been a bit of bad luck for Skubal on the home run thing, and not indicative that he has lost a step on his Cy Young level of performance. His rate stats this year are very favorable to last year's.

I wonder whether that would ironically make Skubal harder to move for the great big return we should get? If Harris highlights during trade talks how Skubal's process stats have held up, while his opponents emphasize the softer outcome stats, and they get into an impasse waiting for the other guy to blink, what would we want Harris to do at that point? Settle for whatever he can get even if it's not nearly as much as he or we would like? Or should he maintain some level of integrity, set a minimum bar for which he will move Skubal, and reject any trade offer that falls below that bar, even if every offer does? What would you do?

That's why Harris has got the corner office—he may have to make that exact decision.

[gehringer_2]

2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

What would you do?

It's also conceivable they could be a better team without him right now. A lot of assumptions required but the scenario being that with 6 capable starters, is the ERA difference for the innings Skubal pitches vs say Montero pitches more or less the the run differential another bat from a trade would add. I don't think that is a slam dunk calculation because the Tiger lineup is just at that point where lengthening it little bit has a sort of catalytic effect, as we saw when we had Torres back. Of course the odds are Skubal wouldn't be traded for step-into-the-lineup bat anyway - but it would be an interesting scenario to hit on a triple AAA bat ready to break out.

[chasfh]

20 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

It's also conceivable they could be a better team without him right now. A lot of assumptions required but the scenario being that with 6 capable starters, is the ERA difference for the innings Skubal pitches vs say Montero pitches more or less the the run differential another bat from a trade would add. I don't think that is a slam dunk calculation because the Tiger lineup is just at that point where lengthening it little bit has a sort of catalytic effect, as we saw when we had Torres back. Of course the odds are Skubal wouldn't be traded for step-into-the-lineup bat anyway - but it would be an interesting scenario to hit on a triple AAA bat ready to break out.

So you would take the best offer whatever it is? That's how this reads. I think you have a lot of company on that one.

[gehringer_2]

2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

So you would take the best offer whatever it is? That's how this reads. I think you have a lot of company on that one.

It very hard to decide when hopefulness become stubborness. There are always outlier outcomes and if this were an older - 'maybe last hurrah' kind of line-up I'd play on for even  a relatively small chance. But this team still has more upside for the future, and if you come to the conclusion that that upside is just greater in '27 and out than it can be in '26 the only rational decision is to move Skubal - or sign him. But if he's determined to go to FA  (which all indications seem to be - "all indications" being primarily his representation by Boras!) why cut off your chance to better in the future for an unrealistic windmill tilt now? If you are a quantitative org you have consider probabilities dispassionately.

[Dan Gilmore]

I should have waited for G2 to respond-edited.

Edited June 25 by Dan Gilmore

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

It very hard to decide when hopefulness become stubborness. The

I read your post as, we could take this offer or we could take that offer, but I didn't see a part where you said, if none of the offers are good, I would keep him. That's why I interpreted it as taking whatever the best offer is, which, there's a good chance that best offer is going to fall short of the view of many fans who expect another team's multiple top 100 Pipeline guys in return. If he doesn't get that offer—if the best he is offered is four of another team's top ten guys, maybe one of whom is a Top 100, perhaps because Skubal already had surgery this year, and already showed an owie in a game afterwards, and is giving up homers in bunches—then what?

Say the best offer is the Braves sending us Eric Hartman, Owen Murphy, Briggs McKenzie, and Diego Tornes. Take it?

[Sports_Freak]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

It's also conceivable they could be a better team without him right now. A lot of assumptions required but the scenario being that with 6 capable starters, is the ERA difference for the innings Skubal pitches vs say Montero pitches more or less the the run differential another bat from a trade would add. I don't think that is a slam dunk calculation because the Tiger lineup is just at that point where lengthening it little bit has a sort of catalytic effect, as we saw when we had Torres back. Of course the odds are Skubal wouldn't be traded for step-into-the-lineup bat anyway - but it would be an interesting scenario to hit on a triple AAA bat ready to break out.

If, and I hope they extend him, but if the Tigers traded him, that's over $30 M off the payroll. If Harris is allowed to spend that money, he could sign a hitter this off-season. Would we be better? Well, if we scored more runs, i would say yes.