None of that stopped the board from liking Los Angeles walking into Comerica. The Dodgers arrived off a bruising three-game set in Atlanta, and the price still reflected a club that, health questions aside, has more talent up and down the roster than a Tigers team playing out a scuffling stretch at home.
The bigger story for Los Angeles coming in wasn't the pitching matchup — it was the three days before it. Atlanta swept the Dodgers to close out that series, snapping a stretch of momentum and serving as a reminder that even a club sitting atop the NL West can go cold against the right arms. Detroit, meanwhile, is buried under .500 and simply trying to find innings out of a patched-together staff.
The injury sheets on both sides are getting long. Los Angeles is missing multiple relievers — Edwin Diaz, Will Klein, Ben Casparius, Blake Treinen and Jake Cousins are all out — which put real pressure on whoever followed Skubal out of the bullpen. Detroit's outfield picture is just as thin, with Riley Greene, Matt Vierling and Kerry Carpenter all sidelined, forcing manager A.J. Hinch to piece together a lineup the way he's had to piece together a rotation.
In the end it came down to a couple of runs. The Dodgers scratched one across in the sixth and tacked on another in the eighth, and that was enough — Detroit's lone run came in the fifth, and the Tigers couldn't find another one against a bullpen that, for one night, held.
It's a low-stakes final score for a Tigers club with no path back into the race, but it's not nothing for a Dodgers team that just got swept and needed to show it could still beat a lesser opponent on the road. Skubal made sure of it in the building that used to be his.