Tigers' Tarik Skubal shuts down Guardians just like he's shut down just about everyone all season

CLEVELAND — If Detroit could dream up a pitcher to steal a road playoff game, he would look a lot like Tarik Skubal. The Tigers left-handed ace showed Monday afternoon why he's a contender, if not the favorite, to win the American League Cy Young, shutting down Cleveland for seven innings as the Tigers combined for a 3-0 shutout to win Game 2 of the American League Divisional Series at Progressive Field. The teams will play Game 3 in Detroit on Wednesday with the best-of-five series now tied at 1. Skubal would be in line to pitch on regular rest should the series come back to Cleveland for Game 5. "I think every time I take the mound, I'm trying to put my team in a position to win and do what I can to win however it's possible," Skubal said. "So in the moment you just can't make the game bigger than it needs to be. As a competitor you can't make it bigger than it needs to be. You gotta stay in the moment." Skubal dominated the regular season with an 18-4 record, a 2.39 ERA, 0.922 WHIP and 228 strikeouts in 192 innings pitched, making 31 starts. He has yet to allow a run in 13 postseason innings as he dominated Houston for six innings, allowing four hits, one walk with six strikeouts in the team's 3-1 win in the American League Wild Card series Oct. 1. Monday was more of the same, only this time he went seven innings against Cleveland. He allowed just three hits and no walks with one hit batter while striking out eight and throwing just 92 pitches (65 strikes). "It's led by Tarik," Detroit manager A.J. Hitch said. "He's as emotional as you can get at the right time, at the right volume. He's able to reset and do his thing. And this is what October is built for. He's built for October, too. It's so rewarding to see our guys play calm, play at ease, play competitively and ultimately play like a winner." While Skubal was lights out — retiring the first 13 batters he faced until Josh Naylor broke up the perfect game with a double to center field in the fifth — he did need some help from his defense to get out of a couple of jams. The first assist came in the fifth when Skubal hit Jhonkensy Noel immediately after Naylor's double to give Cleveland two on with one out. Andres Gimenez grounded into a double play on the first pitch of his at-bat. "He's definitely one of the best, if not the best, pitchers in the league," Tigers shortstop Trey Sweeney told The Chronicle-Telegram. "He's going to give you some action, and get a lot of strikeouts. It's fun to watch and we know we have a good chance to win the game when he's on the mound. It gives us confidence. We couldn't get it going there for a while, but we just had to keep fighting because we knew he was going to keep putting up zeros for us." In the sixth, Bryan Rocchio delivered a one-out double with a line drive down the third-base line. Steven Kwan followed by pushing a single to the opposite field, giving Cleveland runners on the corners. But again Skubal got a double play as David Fry hit a grounder to Sweeney. Kwan tried to break it up with a strong slide, but second baseman Andy Ibanez got the throw off in plenty of time to get Fry at first. Skubal walked off the mound pumping both arms in an effort to energize the Detroit faithful among the Cleveland crowd. "I don't really know where I was at mentally in those situations, but I probably shouldn't say some bad words with some cameras on me with kids watching, but it was just emotion, raw emotion," Skubal said. "The environment here, first off, was great. I think Cleveland fans, this environment was incredible to play in, hostile, all that stuff that as a kid you dream of playing and pitching in front of. So, yeah, it was kind of both those things, I guess." Skubal had a routine seventh, retiring all three batters he faced before turning things over to the bullpen. Will West and Beau Brieske pitched two no-hit innings to preserve the shutout. While West got the win because the Tigers didn't score until the ninth — a two-out three-run home run by Kerry Carpenter off Cleveland's normally shutdown closer Emmanuel Clase — make no mistake, this was Skubal's game. "That's who we want on the mound," Detroit catcher Jake Rogers said. "I wish we could have him every day on the mound. He's been like that all year, he's given us a chance to win every game he's pitched in this year. It's something special and it's been fun to be a part of. Today it was lights out. We had a little bit of shadows early on. It was tough to see (Matthew) Boyd and I know it was tough to see Skubal. He did incredible, going seven innings helps us out a lot." Contact Chris Sweeney at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeney1686 on X.