The Los Angeles Dodgers extended their winning streak to six games on Tuesday thanks in part to Tarik Skubal’s solid start against the Cincinnati Reds.
The left-hander went 7.1 innings and allowed just two runs, both on Elly De La Cruz’s towering 444-foot homer in the top of the third. Skubal struck out five batters and pitched into the eighth inning for the first time with the Dodgers.
He improved to 2-2 with a 2.93 ERA, 1.12 WHIP and 10 strikeouts per nine in 43 innings across seven starts since his trade to L.A. While those numbers are solid on the surface, manager Dave Roberts believes Skubal hasn’t pitched his best baseball with the Dodgers.
That’s a sentiment the two-time Cy Young Award winner agrees with, knowing he has even more to offer the club.
“Yeah, I couldn’t agree more,” Skubal said of the notion that he hasn’t reached his full potential in L.A. “Sometimes I’m fighting myself. I just haven’t really gotten into the rhythm of who I am on the mound yet. There’s still work to be done in that aspect, and that’s also what makes this job fun.
“I get to continue to strive to be a better version of myself tomorrow when I wake up. So, yeah, I think there’s different things to work on, but that’s what makes the game beautiful. You always got a chance to get a little bit better. But I agree with that. I don’t think I’ve thrown the ball as well as I know I’m capable of yet.
Skubal worked on some adjustments with pitching coach Mark Prior during his most recent bullpen session and believes he is getting closer to the best version of himself.
“I mean, there’s stuff I’m constantly working on, especially fastball command when I’m going out,” Skubal said. “Sometimes right now, I’m missing too high up, and then when I’m going up, sometimes I’m pulling it down, and when I’m going down, I’m kind of spraying it up. So there’s always stuff to work on and that’ll never change.
“But as far as continuing to log really good days and just getting a little bit better each and every single day, that’s what really matters. And I feel like I’ve been able to do that. Sometimes the process just takes a little bit longer than you’d like.”
Skubal specifically noted that his execution hasn’t been as good as it was with the Detroit Tigers and wants to improve in that area.
“Yeah, I think I could be better,” Skubal said. “I always think I could be better. Until I execute 100 throws in a row, I’m always going to strive for that. But yeah, I think execution was probably not even as good as it was last start.
“I think there was some bigger misses in there that I can clean up. But I mean that’s the game of baseball. I’m not going to be perfect out there, but I’m going to strive for it. I don’t know how realistic that is.”
Areas for Tarik Skubal to improve
When asked how Skubal can get back to his elite level, Roberts mentioned being more efficient and improving his fastball command.
“Well, the first thing is that we haven’t seen his best, and he’s still really performed as far as underlying numbers, surface numbers,” Roberts began. “What are we going to see to be better? I think that the fastball command hasn’t been as consistent as we’ve seen before he got here.
“I think that he hasn’t been as efficient as he was before he got here. So I think that’s probably the biggest thing: the efficiency, the secondaries, the slider, the changeup.
“But I still think with him, when he’s really good, there’s a lively fastball that gets weak contact early, and so that’s something that he should be at 75 pitches through six innings. That’s when he’s really good. 80 pitches, something like that. So when he’s efficient, that’s when we know we’ve got Tarik back, with the strikeouts on top of that.”
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