Gross Tarik Skubal line in Tigers' loss to A's proves baseball doesn't make any sense

Tarik Skubal was mostly cruising through six innings of the Tigers' opener against the Athletics on Monday night. He gave up an (unearned) run in the sixth on an RBI groundout for Jacob Wilson, after Gleyber Torres and Wenceel Pérez provided three runs of support in the top half. Up until that point, it was pitcher's duel for Skubal and A's starter JT Ginn as they traded strikeouts and mostly singles.

Things got shaky for Skubal in the bottom of the seventh, though, when rookie Colby Thomas homered to put the A's within one. A single and a double put two men in scoring position, and Zach McKinstry's second error of the night loaded the bases with no outs.

Skubal looked like he was going to get out of it. He notched two strikeouts on Zack Gelof and JJ Bleday, his 11th and 12th of the night, but a slider left just about middle-middle to Shea Langeliers doomed his start. Langeliers crushed it 450 feet for a grand slam.

Unsurprisingly, Skubal was promptly pulled and replaced by Brenan Hanifee, who got out of the inning. All told, Skubal's line went was follows: 6 2/3 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 1 ER, 12 K, 2 HR.

Tigers drop opener vs. Athletics after wonky night for Tarik Skubal

The run that came off of Wilson's groundout in the sixth was easy enough to understand. Bleday, the runner that scored, only got to third because of a throwing error from McKinstry. All of those runs in the seventh, however, are harder to justify.

The scorer's logic isn't all that hard to sus out. It could be argued that if McKinstry didn't make his second error and the Tigers had been able to make a play on Brett Harris, who loaded the bases before the grand slam, Skubal would've gotten out of the inning mostly unscathed with the subsequent dual strikeouts. But Darrell Hernaiz and Tyler Soderstrom, the other two runners to score on the grand slam, did get on base fairly, and the homer itself to Langeliers was definitely Skubal's fault.

Despite the loss and the fact that Skubal is self-admittedly hard on himself, you probably won't hear him loudly protesting that final line. Six runs scored on his watch, the most in any of his starts since July 18, 2023, but his ERA dropped by four points to 2.28 because of the way the game was scored. It doesn't make any sense, but we just have to chalk it up to being a really weird night for Tigers baseball.

Putting this one to bed. Let's move on.