Everybody wanted him. The Dodgers were the only team with enough assets to get him. Of course they were. They always are.<\/p>\n
And in return, they surely will win a third consecutive championship against a withering and overmatched group of pretenders that could add Skubal only in their dreams.<\/p>\n
He cost the Dodgers top prospects Zyhir Hope, River Ryan and Brady Smith. So? The Dodgers have tons of them.<\/p>\n
He could be a free agent this winter and may cost $400 million to retain. So? The Dodgers have that much in their couch cushions.<\/p>\n
The Dodgers\u2019 injury-scarred rotation needed a stud starting pitcher like Skubal and, as this column noted last month<\/a>, there was no excuse for baseball\u2019s wealthiest and smartest team not to grab him.<\/p>\n So the Dodgers grabbed him. Of course they did. They are rushing full bore toward that three-peat and, to the delight of the most appreciative fans in baseball, nothing is going to get in their way.<\/p>\n The rest of baseball will hate them for this. They don\u2019t care. Critics will say this is yet another example of how they are ruining the game. They could give a rip.<\/p>\n A move like this \u2014 the insanely rich getting insanely richer \u2014 could be cited this winter as a reason for the game shutting down over a labor dispute. Not their problem.<\/p>\n With a sore Shohei Ohtani<\/a> looking increasingly doubtful for a meaningful October on the mound, with Blake Snell<\/a> and Tyler Glasnow<\/a> still sidelined because of injuries, Skubal can slide into the No. 2 spot in a rotation that, if everyone gets healthy, could wind up being the best in baseball history.<\/p>\n Tarik Skubal was a two-time Cy Young winner for the Detroit Tigers.<\/p>\n (Christian Petersen \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Of course, in the immortal words of Kobe Bryant<\/a>, the job is not finished<\/a>.<\/p>\n There are still questions, even for a team that has all the answers.<\/p>\n Skubal is a tremendous postseason pitcher, with a 2.04 ERA in six starts, but will his surgically repaired left elbow survive through his third postseason?<\/p>\n After pushing 200 innings the last two seasons, he underwent a newfangled minimally invasive procedure on May 6 to remove a loose body from his elbow. Recovery time for a similar surgery performed the old-fashioned way is two to three months, but he was back on the mound in a game just a month later.<\/p>\n Will this new operation hold up? Time will tell, but the Dodgers will be holding their breath.<\/p>\n After Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a> and Skubal, the Dodgers have another potentially big question. What do they do about Ohtani?<\/p>\n He\u2019s got a balky knee, and now a painful biceps, and the Dodgers have kept him off the mound for a moment, but what happens in October?<\/p>\n By acquiring Skubal, the Dodgers can afford to pull Ohtani out of the rotation altogether and allow him to focus on hitting, which has taken a bit of a hit with the pitching issues. But would he accept such a move, which might feel like a demotion? Ohtani always has put winning first, but he also began the season openly acknowledging his quest for a Cy Young Award. So there\u2019s that.<\/p>\n Rounding out the rotation, the Dodgers still will need some good fortune to round out the rotation.<\/p>\n Tarik Skubal returned to the mound in June after surgery to address an elbow issue.<\/p>\n (Jason Miller \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n They say Snell and Glasnow are both on the verge of returning from what has essentially been season-long injuries. But they\u2019ll both be 33 in October, so believe only what you see.<\/p>\n Roki Sasaki<\/a> has been tremendous since the All-Star break \u2014 that new glove has been a giant success \u2014 but he\u2019s still never started a postseason game. And for all his surprise greatness this summer, Justin Wrobleski<\/a> also has yet to start a postseason game.<\/p>\n It all could get interesting. But it shouldn\u2019t be suspenseful.<\/p>\n Skubal solves all mysteries. Skubal ends all arguments. Skubal saves the summer.<\/p>\n The Dodgers are the most championship-driven and fan-devoted team in all of sports. They will do whatever it takes, however it takes, whenever it takes, to win.<\/p>\n Five words that unequivocally prove it.<\/p>\n Tarik Skubal is a Dodger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tarik Skubal is a Dodger. The five words every baseball soul outside of Los Angeles dreaded hearing. The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":974990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[591,1582,276,2442,54047,1910,296731,391251,2961,224,5337,391252,9105,8332,471,8328,54306,366173,6620,27020],"class_list":["post-974989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-baseball","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-dodgers","tag-elbow","tag-game","tag-good-pitcher","tag-injury-scarred-rotation","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-meaningful-october","tag-month","tag-mound","tag-no","tag-ohtani","tag-skubal","tag-tarik-skubal-trade","tag-time","tag-word"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117024158435696394","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/974990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Tarik](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1785646823_262_.jpeg\")
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