Because Tarik Skubal returned to the Detroit Tigers’ spring training camp after making just one start in the World Baseball Classic this year, Clayton Kershaw didn’t spend as much time with him as he did with Team USA’s other players.
But in the little more than a week in which they shared a clubhouse, Kershaw said Skubal made it obvious what he was about.
“He wants to be great,” Kershaw told The California Post.
Kershaw, who temporarily came out of retirement to be on Team USA, said everything Skubal did reflected the scale of his ambition.
“I think that comes out in how he talks and how he prepares,” Kershaw said. “You can tell he wants to be the best.”
Something else: Skubal asked a lot of questions.
“He’s very confident in what he does well, but he really likes to ask guys and hear how other people do it,” Kershaw said. “I just think it’s a really good quality to be interested in what other people are doing.”
From Skubal’s vantage point, Kershaw was a former Most Valuable Player, a three-time Cy Young Award winner and a three-time World Series champion. Why wouldn’t Skubal use him as a resource?
“He’s the best left-hander ever, right?” said Skubal, himself a two-time Cy Young Award winner. “Obviously, that was a great opportunity for me to pick [his] brain and talk about what made him tick, what made him so good, his process, all that kind of stuff. I want to accomplish all the same things he’s been able to accomplish. I’ll probably keep most of what we talked about between me and him, but as far as the questions that I asked, they were very much [about] how to be great, how to be like him.”
Skubal pitched six innings in a 6-2 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday in his third start for the Dodgers, who acquired him two days before the trade deadline.
He wasn’t great.
Skubal gave up seven hits and walked two. His pitch count was at 48 after just two innings, departing with a 2-1 deficit and ultimately falling to 0-2 as a Dodger.
But on a day in which he wasn’t at his best, he limited the damage to two runs, of which only one was earned. He competed.
Which is what Kershaw was known to do.
“He competes his ass off,” Skubal said.
Last year, in his final major league season, Kershaw threw a fastball with an average velocity of 89.0 mph. He managed to finish with an 11-2 record and 3.36 earned-run average.
“I think what I admire about all the really good players in this game is that longevity and consistency, year in and year out, of who he was even towards the end of his career,” Skubal said. “He was incredible from start to finish. That consistency is pretty impressive to watch. That’s what I admire.”
Kershaw was in the major leagues for 18 seasons. Skubal’s former Tigers teammate, three-time Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander, is now in his 21st season.
“Guys could have a good season, or a good first half, or a good second half, but the really good players, the great, great players in this game are season after season after season after season after season. And then you look up and it’s like, damn, he’s been the best pitcher in baseball for eight years. Not that having a good month or having a good half isn’t impressive. It’s all impressive. This is the best league in the world. But being able to do it for 10, 12, 13, 14 [years], it’s just different.”
That’s how the 29-year-old Skubal would like for his career to unfold.
“I’m going to play this game as long as I can,” he said. “I feel like I can help a team win, I’m gonna play. If I feel like I can’t help a team win anymore, then I’m probably done playing.
Conversations with the likes of Kershaw and Verlander reinforced Skubal’s belief in the importance of what he does between starts.
“I think I’m the most prepared player on the field every time I take the field,” Skubal said exclusively to The Post. “If I’m going to lose a game, I want it to be in my hands. I can wear the loss just because I know I prepare really well and I go out there and I don’t really leave anything on the table. I give this game everything I’ve got.”
Kershaw and Verlander continually pushed their limits, and Skubal said he is determined to do the same. The reigning two-time Cy Young winner is in unfamiliar territory now, playing for a team that is expected to win the World Series based in the country’s second-largest media market.
Kershaw said he should be up for it.
“I think he’s ready to do that,” Kershaw said. “He’s got the temperament and mentality.
“From what I saw, he puts the work in to be great.”