Tarik Skubal’s Dominating Win Over Rangers Featured Stellar MLB High

Detroit Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal thoroughly dominated the Texas Rangers and set a MLB mark for the season in the process.

May 9, 2025; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Tarik Skubal (29) pitches in the third inning against the Texas Rangers at Comerica Park. | Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images

DETROIT — It’s not easy for Detroit Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal to top himself. But he keeps trying.

On Friday, he drew the start against the Texas Rangers. It’s a lineup that going into the season was considered one of the best in baseball. But, for most of the season, it has struggled. Texas has been among the worst-hitting lineups in baseball in nearly every key category.

Going up against a pitcher like Skubal wasn’t going to help matters. He made sure the Rangers had previous few chances to make things happen in a 2-1 win.

Tarik Skubal’s Dominating MLB Season Milestone

Skubal (4-2) threw 96 pitches in seven innings. He gave up just two hits, one run (earned) and didn’t walk a hitter. He struck out 12, which tied his career high.

In fact, in his last six starts Skubal has been incredible. Per the Tigers, he has struck out 50 and walked one in 37 innings.

Incredibly, those are not the numbers that stand out.

Skubal’s stuff was absolutely on fire on Friday. He maxed out his four-seam fastball at 100.1 mph. He mixed five different pitchers, including a knuckle-curve that dropped to 83.1 mph. He threw the four-seamer about 40% of the time and mixed in the change-up 29% and the sinker 22%.

The Rangers were befuddled, to the point where they swung and missed at 32 of the 96 pitches Skubal threw.

That’s significant. No pitcher has had more swing-and-miss pitches than Skubal in any game this season per Statcast.

Tarik Skubal generated 32 whiffs today - the most by any pitcher in a start this season! pic.twitter.com/ihatlZH4if

— MLB (@MLB) May 10, 2025

“He’s as good as there is in the game,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “Big fastball. He has that great change-up to go with the breaking ball. But the fastball was really big for him. It had a lot of hop to it and it got on them (hitters) quick.”

Skubal also did this, per MLB.com's Sarah Langs.

50+ strikeouts and no more than 1 walk in single-season 6-outing span, at least last 125 seasons:

2025 Tarik Skubal
2021 Gerrit Cole (2 overlapping spans)
2021 Corbin Burnes
2019 Yu Darvish (2 overlapping)
2015 Max Scherzer
2002 Curt Schilling
2000 Pedro Martinez https://t.co/SJa2D4QWEk

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) May 10, 2025

How did the Rangers score the run? Josh Smith broke up Skubal’s perfect game with a leadoff single in the sixth. Skubal then hit Ezequiel Duran with a pitch. Two batters later, Sam Haggerty singled home Smith from second. Skubal induced a groundout from Jonan Heim to end the inning and preserve his win.

The lefty has set other milestones this season. At one point, he became the third pitcher ever to throw at least 30 innings with a 0.90 ERA, 38 strikeouts and one walk in a five-start stretch.

On April 27 against the Baltimore Orioles, he became the third Tigers pitcher in history to have an outing with zero runs allowed, zero walks, and 11 or more strikeouts.

Against the Milwaukee Brewers, he became the first Tigers pitcher since 2000 to have an outing of seven or more innings and give up no walks, strike out nine or more batters and throw no more than 91 pitches.