HOUSTON \u2014 Two-time defending American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal will leave Team USA after its game against Mexico and return to Tigers camp in Lakeland, Fla., Team USA manager Mark DeRosa said Monday afternoon. DeRosa said Skubal will not pitch again in the WBC, finalizing what the ace lefty described this weekend as \u201cone of the tougher decisions I\u2019ve made in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skubal is scheduled to hit free agency after the season and will command one of the largest starting pitching contracts in baseball history. His importance to the Detroit Tigers, a team with legitimate American League pennant expectations, can\u2019t be overstated, either. The risk he assumed by even accepting the invitation to pitch in a preseason tournament is immense.<\/p>\n
In an effort to mitigate it, Skubal announced last month he would make just one WBC start before returning to the Tigers\u2019 spring training facility and continuing his buildup for the regular season. Skubal made that start on Saturday, striking out five across three innings of one-run ball during Team USA\u2019s 9-1 victory against Great Britain.<\/p>\n
Patriotism and the pageantry of Saturday\u2019s start altered Skubal\u2019s plans. After the start, he acknowledged a change in perspective after pitching with U-S-A across his chest and enjoying the camaraderie built within the team\u2019s clubhouse.<\/p>\n
After his start, Skubal said he phoned Tigers officials and his agent, Scott Boras, in hopes of finding a way to pitch again for Team USA. On Sunday, Detroit manager A.J. Hinch told reporters in Florida that he spoke with Skubal on Saturday night and heard someone \u201cincredibly emotional about the experience\u201d who is \u201cin a tough spot to accomplish everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t expect these types of emotions to run through my brain or my thoughts to differ. I was pretty committed to making a start and getting back to camp,\u201d Skubal said on Saturday. \u201cThings have changed, obviously, that\u2019s why I\u2019m going to have some conversations to try and figure out a plan for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
That Skubal even agreed to appear once for Team USA earned Skubal enormous respect from around the clubhouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody knows he is going to get absolutely broken off next year, and he\u2019s going to make more money than anybody as a starting pitcher,\u201d Team USA first baseman Bryce Harper said on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor him to be able to do that and do it for us is something I respect out of him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2014 Two-time defending American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal will leave Team USA after its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5311],"tags":[138087,14881,49,978,659,13087],"class_list":["post-815222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-mlb","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-world-baseball-classic"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116201360238652335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}