Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Tarik Skubal had one of the roughest starts of his major league career on Thursday against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Skubal allowed eight hard-hit balls and 10 hits, while his velocity was down compared to his usual season average.
What made Skubal’s start so ugly
According to Statcast, most of the hits he allowed were hard contact, not soft-hit balls, and had a high expected batting average.
The southpaw had just 13 whiffs on 102 pitches, with a 25% whiff rate on swings, all of which are figures down relative to his usual standards.
At his best, Skubal really misses the sweet spot of the bat, either through swing-and-misses or jamming up hitters.
Skubal did neither in the clip that he usually does. He only totaled six strikeouts due to his pitches lacking the needed bite.
When speaking to the media, including Dodgers Nation, after his start, Skubal seemed quite happy overall since most of the damage was singles instead of extra-base hits.
Why Tarik Skubal is not adjusting
“I think early, just the changeup was a little bit elevated, and that’s kind of how you can put some good swings on it,” Skubal said.
“And, at the end of the day, though, they were all singles, so it’s not like I need to change my approach. It’s not like they were slugging anything.
“So just got to stay true to who I am, and I bet there were 10 to 15 throws that are less than two inches off the plate both ways, you know, and if those are over the plate, that’s 10 or 15 more strikes.”
Skubal admitted that he did not make an adjustment during his start, and he does not feel like anything of note needs to change.
Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see whether he makes any tweaks to his changeup, since it lost an inch of horizontal break and gained vertical break on average, per Statcast.
In fairness to Skubal, the Cardinals did a good job of staying on his pitches and locking in at the plate. They were putting together good at-bats.
They scored 21 runs against the Dodgers over the two games before Skubal’s start.
However, now Skubal is still looking for his first masterpiece as a Dodger, stringing together one of those outings where he makes hitters look silly for a full start.
