The Dodgers didn't trade for a two-time reigning Cy Young winner to watch him leave games trailing, but that's the pattern through his first 3 outings in blue. Skubal came over from Detroit right before the deadline in a deal that sent Zyhir Hope, River Ryan and Brady Smith back to the Tigers, the kind of prospect haul you only pay for a true ace. So far the stuff has looked every bit as advertised. The results attached to his name have not.
His debut on August 4 against the Cubs was the blueprint for the whole stretch. Skubal went 6 innings, allowed 2 runs, struck out 6 and got tagged for a Dansby Swanson homer, but the Dodgers managed just 1 run of their own in a 5-1 loss that extended a 5-game losing streak. Skubal was blunt about it afterward, saying it's his job to just go out there and compete and put the team in position to win a ballgame. He did his part. The lineup didn't.
That graphic making the rounds lays out the trend in stark terms: 6 innings left trailing 2-1, 5 innings left trailing 3-2, 6 innings left trailing 2-1 across his 3 Dodgers starts. It's not that he's getting hit hard — he's racking up strikeouts every time out — it's that the Dodgers, a team that leads the majors in run differential, can't seem to score behind him specifically. Small sample, sure, but it's a weird enough quirk that bettors and fantasy managers leaning on him down the stretch need to have it on their radar.
The stuff itself hasn't been the issue at all. Skubal was flashing a nasty 88 mph changeup that's become one of the signature weapons in his arsenal, the same pitch that's helped him rack up back-to-back Cy Youngs in Detroit.
Skubal drops a filthy 88 mph changeup that buckles the hitter.
He backed that up by blowing through the middle of a lineup in order, punching out the side in the 6th inning of one of these starts — the kind of dominant stretch that should be putting games away, not just keeping them close.
Skubal strikes out the side in the 6th, mowing down 3 straight hitters.
The Dodgers didn't give up a top-5 and top-8 prospect plus another arm to watch their new ace scuffle through no-decisions and losses in a three-peat push, but the trailing-when-he-leaves trend is arguably a lineup problem more than a Skubal problem. He's already shown he can flip that script — his Dodger Stadium debut against the Royals saw the team rally for a 6-5 win even after he departed in a hole. The stuff is elite, the strikeouts are piling up, and eventually the wins should follow. Until they do, every Skubal start is going to come with an asterisk attached.