Tigers turn to Tarik Skubal, seek series win vs. Royals

Tarik Skubal has developed into a pitcher no one wants to face, except perhaps his opponent on Sunday afternoon.

Skubal, the Detroit Tigers' unofficial ace, will start the finale of a three-game home series against Kansas City.

The Royals have been unusually successful against Skubal (3-0, 1.82 ERA). He has faced them 11 times, including nine starts, posting a 1-7 record and 5.09 ERA. Kansas City catcher Salvador Perez has eight hits, including five for extra bases, in 18 at-bats against Skubal.

Skubal, a 27-year-old left-hander, has held the opposition scoreless in three of his five outings this season. That included his latest start on Monday, when he held the Tampa Bay Rays to three hits in six innings. He didn't issue any walks while recording nine strikeouts.

Detroit scored three runs in the first two innings, tacked on four more runs in the middle innings, and cruised to a 7-1 win.

"When he dominates in the strike zone and gets them in swing mode and you give him the lead, it just gives him a leash to pitch aggressively to the zone," Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. "He threw a ton of strikes, missed a ton of bats. This is a team he wanted to attack, and the comfortable lead and a couple of good defensive plays behind him gave him some freedom to pitch the way he did. He was in total command."

Hinch took out Skubal after 86 pitches to save his arm for closer contests.

"It was huge getting out to an early lead," Skubal said. "It gave me even more confidence to pound the zone. Up four, it takes a grand slam to tie the game. So you can go right at guys and see how far they can hit it in certain counts."

Veteran right-hander Michael Wacha (1-2, 3.81 ERA) will start for Kansas City on Sunday. In his latest outing on Tuesday, he allowed two runs and eight hits in 4 1/3 innings to the Toronto Blue Jays but didn't figure in the 3-2 win.

Wacha's lone win in five outings came on April 6 when he held the Chicago White Sox scoreless for seven innings in a 3-0 game.

He's 1-0 with a 2.35 ERA in three career starts against the Tigers.

The teams split the first two games of the series. Kansas City won Friday's opener 8-0, and Detroit rallied for a 6-5 victory on Saturday night.

The Tigers scored five seventh-inning runs to wipe out a 3-1 deficit. They overcame four errors to hold for the win, but Hinch wasn't pleased with the sloppy performance.

"We can't keep winning like that," he said. "We're going to need to pick things up and be better. But we are going to take the win. The fight in this team is really good, and that's what I love about this team. It's just unsustainable to make mistakes and expect to put up a five-spot against a bullpen. There was good and bad. We'll take the good."

Matt Vierling provided the big blow with a three-run homer.

"It felt great," he said. "It felt even better that we were able to come back and win."

The Royals saw their four-game winning streak snapped despite scoring two ninth-inning runs.

"Tough loss," manager Matt Quatraro said. "We had to take advantage of some of their mistakes, (and) we didn't capitalize on (them) and they had one big inning. That's what it boils down to. Our guys battled until the end."