Tigers manager AJ Hinch defends controversial decision to pull Tarik Skubal vs Royals

On Saturday night at Kauffman Stadium, the Detroit Tigers were deadlocked in a scoreless tie with the Kansas City Royals. Left-hander Tarik Skubal was dealing, showing no visible signs of fatigue as he tossed an efficient 90 pitches across seven scoreless innings, but manager A.J. Hinch elected to remove him from the game. The Tigers went on to lose by a final score of 1-0.

Needless to say, Hinch's decision to pull Skubal loomed large after the loss. Despite the result, the Tigers' skipper defended the move, citing the longterm health of his ace and Detroit's pitching staff as a whole.

"Listen, it's way easier to just let guys go until they can't go anymore," Hinch said (via Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press). "We need all of our pitchers... When it doesn't work out in your favor, it doesn't mean the decision wasn't made with some intent. Obviously, it's a long season. We've got to run the race to get where we need to get to. All you really need to do is look around our rotation and the rotation around the league. It's hard to get through the race. It's hard to get wire to wire without making some difficult decisions along the way."

Tigers manager AJ Hinch defends controversial decision to pull Tarik Skubal after 90 pitches vs Royals

The rest, as they say, is history. Beau Brieske entered the game in relief of Skubal and allowed an RBI single to Vinnie Pasquantino that scored Nick Loftin. That would be all it took for Kansas City to secure the win and keep the Tigers from sweeping their American League Central division rivals.

Given the final result, Hinch's in-game decision led to plenty of "what-ifs" from Tigers fans. But pitching and game management decisions aren't made in a vacuum. There were several factors that played into Hinch's decision to yank Skubal after seven innings, not the least of which being the fact that Skubal's last start was a nine-inning shutout against the Cleveland Guardians on May 25 – the longest start of his career.

Ultimately, Hinch's cautious decision may have cost the Tigers a game, but keeping pitchers healthy – especially Skubal – remains of the utmost importance. It's only June, and three members of the Tigers rotation have already spent time on the injured list (and that's not even including Alex Cobb, who may never pitch in a Tigers uniform at this rate).

The Tigers have World Series aspirations, and they need their reigning AL Cy Young winner to stay healthy in order to make it happen. If that means he gets pulled an an inning too early in a regular season game, then so be it. One loss to Kansas City in May isn't going to make or break Detroit's season.

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