Tarik Skubal’s Complete Game Sparks Debate: Should Tigers Let Their Ace Go the Distance More Often?

DETROIT — After delivering one of the most efficient pitching performances of the 2025 MLB season, Tarik Skubal is not just making headlines — he’s challenging norms. With a 94-pitch complete-game shutout against the Cleveland Guardians, the reigning American League Cy Young winner has reignited the conversation around the role of the starting pitcher in today’s game. And he has a very vocal supporter: former Tigers legend and future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander.

“If I’m the Tigers, and I’ve got the best pitcher in baseball, I want that [expletive] out there — ride that horse,” said Verlander, who watched Skubal’s performance and was quick to draw comparisons between the 28-year-old lefty and a golden generation of aces like Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw.

Skubal’s Sunday outing marked the fifth complete game of the entire season across Major League Baseball — a stunningly low number that underlines how rare such feats have become. It was also Skubal’s first career complete game, and it came with surgical precision: zero walks, 13 strikeouts, and just 22 balls thrown.

Since returning from surgery in mid-2023, Skubal has emerged as arguably the most dominant pitcher in the game. In 57 starts and 341 innings since then, he holds an MLB-best 2.51 ERA and a staggering 11.8 fWAR. According to Verlander, no current pitcher has turned themselves into a star with such authority since the previous generation’s greats.

“Is he the only starter from this new era to truly establish himself as an elite, inning-eating ace?” Verlander asked. “Guys like Paul Skenes may have the hype, but Skubal has the results.”

And Skubal wants to keep proving it — by staying on the mound longer.

“The game’s changed because relievers are so good now,” Skubal said before a recent game against San Francisco. “But my goal is to make it really hard for A.J. [Hinch] to take me out. I want him to have to think about it.”

That decision-making process has become a delicate balance for Tigers manager A.J. Hinch. On one hand, the data and health concerns encourage limiting pitch counts. On the other, Hinch acknowledges that a performance like Skubal’s earns the right to go the distance.

“If guys want to enter the ninth inning with 85 pitches, I promise you I will leave guys in,” Hinch stated. “But if we’re talking 120 pitches? Then the fresh arm of a reliever is just better.”

Still, Verlander argues that mindset may be costing the team — and the sport — a chance to develop the next generation of workhorse starters. “Not every pitcher is built the same,” he said. “Skubal is special. Maybe this is where teams start trending back — when they have someone like him.”

Skubal himself has yet to cross the 100-pitch threshold in 2025 and has done so only four times in his career. Yet, his elite efficiency — averaging just over six innings per start and throwing fewer than 96 pitches — suggests he’s capable of much more. His final pitch in the shutout was clocked at a record 102.6 mph, the fastest by any pitcher after 75 pitches this year.

It’s an old-school mentality in a new-school era. And for the Tigers, the question is becoming louder: Will they let their ace go the distance more often?