Opposition research: Tarik Skubal

Meet the American League’s best pitcher

The Tigers are one of those teams that Phillies fans likely don’t think about much. They don’t have much of a history together, and there aren’t that many notable players who have suited up for both teams. (Lance Parrish and Nick Castellanos are the first two that come to mind.) Nor have the Tigers commanded all that much of the national spotlight that would force Phillies fans to pay attention to them. But the 2025 Tigers are in first place in the American League Central, and one of the main reasons for that is because they have probably the best pitcher in the AL heading their rotation.

After being drafted in the eighth round in 2018, Skubal quickly established himself as one of the best pitching prospects in baseball. It took him few years, but last year, he put it all together, leading the AL in wins, ERA, strikeouts, and WAR and earning the Cy Young Award.

He’s somehow been even better this season, with an ERA down to 2.09, which leads the league. He strikes out a lot of batters and barely walks any.

Skubal is scheduled to face off against Zack Wheeler on Saturday. Let’s hope Wheeler got his bad start out of his system the last time out, because this is one of the rare times the Phillies won’t have an obvious starting pitching advantage with him on the mound.

X-Men character of the series

Nate Grey

Sometimes, comic book creators write themselves into a corner. They come up with a character, and realize he’s too powerful. It works well if the character is a villain, because you need an imposing threat. But if it’s hero, it’s hard to build drama when he’s simply stronger than his opponents. (This is where the analogy with Skubal comes in, because this is how hitters likely feel when facing him.)

Nate Grey is the son of Scott Summers and Jean Grey from the Age of Apocalypse timeline. He’s basically Cable without the limitations (and the excessive weaponry). They eventually made him into a villain because what else could they do?

Additional thought about the series

With the additions of Jhoan Duran and David Robertson, the Phillies should theoretically have a good bullpen moving forward. (Wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong about this though.)

I’m not as sold on the offense. Harrison Bader is having a solid year, and the at bats he takes away from Max Kepler should improve the Phillies, but I don’t see him being a major difference maker.

Any improvement we get from this point on will likely involve the players already on hand hitting to their potential. Maybe Bader (and possibly Justin Crawford?) can bolster things, but it seems like the Phillies’ front office believes the offense is capable of scoring enough runs to be a consistent winner. We’ll see if they’re correct.