Detroit Tigers Ace Might Possess Single Most Dominant Pitch in Baseball

The best pitch in baseball could very well be owned by the Detroit Tigers ace.

Apr 2, 2025; Seattle, Washington, USA; Detroit Tigers starter Tarik Skubal (29) delivers a pitch during the first inning against the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park. | Stephen Brashear-Imagn Images

The Detroit Tigers know that every time their ace Tarik Skubal takes the mound, they are going to have a chance to win the game.

The reigning 2024 American League Cy Young Award winner got off to a bit of a rocky start, not looking like himself in his first two outings. Since then, he has regained the form that led to him taking home the prestigious award.

In the most recent outing against the Milwaukee Brewers, he was truly dominant.

He threw seven shutout innings, allowing only four hits and zero walks to go along with nine strikeouts. Brewers hitters were left baffled at the plate, as they didn’t get their first hit until the fourth inning of the game.

Everything was clicking for Skubal, who is now 2-2 on the season. He has won his last two starts, throwing a combined 13 shutout innings with 15 strikeouts, allowing only eight hits and issuing zero free passes.

After allowing three home runs and two doubles in his first two outings against the Los Angeles Dodgers and Seattle Mariners, he has allowed zero extra base hits to the New York Yankees and Milwaukee.

Arguably, the biggest reason he has gotten back on track is that he has taken his changeup to another level.

There is a real argument to be made that his changeup is the singular best pitch in baseball right now. It was already a devastating offering, something he had been honing since having to undergo flexor tendon surgery in 2020.

“It’s been a huge pitch for me,” Skubal said via Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic (subscription required). “It’s kind of changed my career.”

The Brewers saw firsthand just how dominant a pitch his changeup is.

He threw it 34% of the time, making it the offering he went to the most often of his 91 pitches. Of the 15 swings they took at it, nine of them were whiffs. The ball was put in play only twice and both were hit weakly.

The scariest part for hitters is that his changeup is actually improving in 2025.

As Stavenhagen shared, the average velocity on the pitch is now 87.8 mph, up from 86.3 last year. Five inches of vertical break and 12 inches of armside run are the goals that he has in mind for movement.

Heading into the start against Milwaukee, he averaged 16.4 inches of horizontal break, which is an improvement over the 14.9 inches he averaged during his Cy Young-winning campaign.

“It looks like he throws it with the same intent as his fastball,” his teammate Kerry Carpenter said. “Those are always pretty tough when pitchers really sell it. … I’ve seen it before, and yeah, I struck out on it in live at-bats. So I can understand why people don’t like it.”

There were a few occasions against the Brewers where he bumped the changeup velocity up to 91 mph, creating ridiculous amounts of spin and movement on the ball.

It doesn’t lose effectiveness deeper into the game either. Skubal threw a pitch against Joey Ortiz that had 19 inches of run away from his bat in the seventh inning.

Good luck to opposing hitters attempting to do any sort of damage against a pitch that good.