Kansas City Royals Tarik Skubal accepted a deal of $62.4 million to depart from Royals…
– Not even Tarik Skubal could douse the sizzling Kansas City Royals’ bats. They knocked Skubal out of the game after five innings and completed the three-game sweep of the Tigers on Wednesday afternoon with an 8-3 win at Kauffman Stadium. It was Skubal’s first loss in 15 starts, dating to Aug. 29, 2023, against the Yankees.
The four runs tied for the most against him in 10 starts this season. He didn’t have his usual sharp command on his pitches, but even his quality pitches were getting hit – the same fate that befell Tigers pitching in all three games, as Kansas City banged out 26 runs and 34 hits. Skubal’s troubles started in the second inning, when he walked Nelson Velazquez on four pitches and then left a 3-2, 94-mph four-seamer in the heart of the plate to Freddy Fermin.
Fermin knocked it off the wall in left-center for an RBI double. Two batters later, No. 8 hitter Garrett Hampson, after being brushed off the plate by a 97-mph heater, was all over a change-up – another RBI double. In the fourth, Valazquez, down in the count 0-1, didn’t even flinch at two straight change-ups on the outer edge.
Then he obliterated a 94-mph two-seamer, sending it over the wall in left-center. The Royals scratched again in the fifth. Maikel Garcia and Bobby Witt Jr. both dunked opposite-field flares into right field, and left-handed-hitting Vinnie Pasquantino lined an RBI single to right.
