Kind of expected that: Tigers 7, Phillies 5

Tarik Skubal is as advertised

What started out as a pitcher’s duel, one billed as a matchup of Cy Young candidate versus Cy Young candidate ended in a sprint to simply get the 27th out as quickly as possible. The Tigers would prevail, but not before things at least got a bit interesting.

The first two innings were as billed. Zack Wheeler and Tarik Skubal were masterful in those opening frames, matching each other with strikeout after strikeout out, weak contact after weak contact. In the third, the Tigers got to Wheeler when the Phillies ace made two mistakes over the middle of plate, Colt Keith and Kerry Carpenter not missing either one of them.

Wheeler did settle down for the next few innings, but Skubal was just dominant. The Phillies just could do nothing with his pitches. They couldn’t make contact when it was in the zone and when he did venture there, the contact they made was weak. Even waiting him out felt pointless since he threw so few pitches out of the zone in the first place. He was outstanding.

For his part, Wheeler stayed good until the seventh inning when he was brought back out to face the bottom of the order. Otto Kemp booted a ball to start the inning, then Javier Baez launched a moonshot to make the score 4-0.

Wheeler would depart for Tanner Banks, another start that was good, but not great from the team’s top starter. Something to keep an eye on.

Banks gave up a home run to make it 5-0, a seemingly insurmountable peak to even attempt against someone like Skubal, but the Phillies tried. In their half of the inning, Bryce Harper singled to start the frame, J.T. Realmuto doubled him home for the first run, then scored himself when Nick Castellanos blasted a two-run home run to make the it interesting against the Tigers ace.

Skubal got out of it, ending his day with seven innings where he dominated for most of it, then turned it to his bullpen.

For their part, the Phillies bullpen was unable to keep it close when Matt Strahm entered in the eighth. Two two-out walks by Strahm ended up scoring when he was unable to put away Baez with two strikes, then allowed a triple that got two runs right back and made it 7-3 in favor of Detroit.

In their half of the eighth, against Will Vest, the Phillies did scratch out two runs back their way when Harper drove a pitch 417 feet into left center field for a home run that made the game interesting.

Yet in the ninth, facing old foe, recently acquired by Detroit, Kyle Finnegan, the Phillies offense went down meekly, unable to muster the same dramatics from the previous night.