"Lefties staying in there are Shohei Ohtani, Bryce Harper" - Tarik Skubal claims he only gets to face elite southpaws due to his dominant sinker

Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal spoke about how his sinker helped him become a better pitcher and that only elite lefties like Shohei Ohtani and Bryce Harper chose to face him.

The 28-year-old pitcher had the best season of his career last year, landing his first NL Cy Young award. On the Tiger Territory podcast, Skubal opened up about his sinker working wonders against lefties (9:09 - 14:19):

"Sinkers to lefties just worked. So we would game plan and be like this is the pitch to this guy we get in the game, and I'm throwing sinkers and they're not really hitting it around, and I'm getting a lot of positive results on the ground.

"That wasn't one of my goals going into the season. ... the goal was to start striking out lefties at a higher clip, in '23 I didn't really strike out a ton of lefties. When we got into the season, the sinker was really effective so I'm not going to change it. Nor do I get a ton of lefties anyways...and the lefties that are staying in there are Shohei Ohtani, Bryce Harpers, Kyle Schwarbers, Freddie Freemans, who know those guys that are dogs."

He continued:

"There's just been a lot of development in me as a pitcher in terms of pitch usage...yeah, I'm still probably throwing 55-60% fastballs but I'm throwing them in different counts and that is the biggest difference... That's pitching, I think that's the beauty in the game, just being able to throw pitches in certain counts then you bring the whole chess match into it."

Tarik Skubal, who started his MLB career with the Detroit Tigers in 2020, initially struggled adjusting to hitters in the major leagues. However, he made some changes to his pitching in 2023, which resulted in lesser fly balls and more gounders.

In 2024, Tarik Skubal took his pitching to another level, and his sinker played a huge role in his development. Over the past year, his sinker posed a real problem to lefties, who struggled to cope with the changes he made.

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Former Twins star singles out Tarik Skubal as the pitcher he doesn't want to face right now

Tarik Skubal is coming off his best season in the major leagues with the Detroit Tigers and has won a lot of parise following his Cy Young-winning year.

Speaking about Skubal on Talkin' Baseball, former Minnesota Twins star Trevor Plouffe said:

"You got Tarik at the top who's just an absolute dog. ... I think he'd be the guy I'd be most scared to face."

Plouffe's MLB career that lasted almost a decade, playing most of that with the Twins. Now an analyst, he believes that Skubal is probably the best pitcher in the game right now.