Detroit Tigers’ starting pitcher, Tarik Skubal, began the season with ambitions of becoming the first pitcher in American League history to win three straight Cy Young awards. He was certainly in contention over the first month-plus of the season, with a 2.70 ERA and 45 strikeouts—both of which are in the top 10 of the league. Then, Sunday came, and the ace felt discomfort in his left throwing elbow, with Monday revealing the news that Detroit didn’t want to hear.
Now, Skubal’s ambitions are simply to pitch again in the 2026 MLB season as he’ll undergo elbow surgery in the very near future. The Tigers announced the news on Monday, just hours before Skubal was scheduled to start against the Boston Red Sox. But they also said they don’t know how long he’ll be sidelined until the doctors go in and examine the elbow.
“It’s anybody’s guess right now until he actually has the surgery,” manager A.J. Hinch said about a timetable. “We’ve got to talk to the doctor, have the surgery and form a plan of rehab. So, a lot has to happen before we race to the return. I think it’s a relatively simple procedure, if you can call any type of surgical intervention simple.
“There’s light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to. I know what Tarik is going to bring back to this team when he gets there, and we have a process to get there.”
In Skubal’s last start on Wednesday versus the Atlanta Braves, he was pitching in the seventh inning when he threw a 96 mph sinker and then appeared to be shaking out some discomfort in his arm. He signaled to the Tigers’ dugout, upon which trainer Dillon Dingler and Hinch visited the mound.
Skubal stayed in the game and proceeded to strike out the side before exiting the contest. It was another classic performance from the southpaw: he struck out seven and allowed just 2 ER in a 4-3 loss to the Braves. But, for now, it’s the last time Tigers fans will see Skubal for a while, as early projections are for him to miss multiple months following the surgery.
This issue isn’t necessarily something new for Skubal, who’s been dealing with varying levels of discomfort all year. He had a limited workload in the World Baseball Classic, pitching in just one game, but he thought that as his pitch count built up during the regular season, the issue would go away.
“This is something that I’ve kind of been dealing with,” Skubal said on Monday. “But then again, it was progressing in a positive manner, so I wasn’t very concerned about it. I kind of figured once I got my workload up, just from my general soreness in Spring Training, that it would go away.
“The thing in Atlanta just so happened to be in a [public spot]—it’s hard to hide from the camera when you’re on the mound, so I didn’t have time to fix it … This is something that I’ve been dealing with all season. It’s good to get an answer, honestly.”
This will be the third known surgery for Skubal on his left arm, and it comes just months before he’s set to become a free agent. He had Tommy John Surgery while in college in 2017, causing him to miss all of that season and fall to the ninth round of the 2018 MLB Draft.
Then in his second full season as a starter in 2022, he had left forearm surgery that knocked him out for 11 months, as he didn’t return until midseason in 2023. Finally fully healthy in 2024, that was the year that Skubal began his Cy Young run, which will certainly end this season.
Skubal won the Pitching Triple Crown in 2024, leading the AL in wins (18), ERA (2.39), and strikeouts (228). He was the unanimous AL Cy Young winner, getting all 30 first-place votes, and then received 26 first-place votes in repeating with the award in 2025.
He became the 23rd pitcher to win multiple Cy Youngs and the 12th man to win back-to-back awards. Three in a row is unprecedented for the American League, though two pitchers have done it in the National League. Greg Maddux won four straight from 1992-95, and Randy Johnson also won four straight from 1999-2002.
To fill Skubal’s spot on the mound, the Tigers recalled Ty Madden, who pitched six games for the team in 2024, missed the entire 2025 season due to injury, and began this year in Triple-A. In place of Skubal for his scratched start on Monday, Detroit utilized a bullpen game, with Tyler Horton serving as the opener for the second straight game after he began Sunday’s contest pitching two-thirds of an inning.
Detroit entered play on Monday with an 18-17 record, tying it with the Cleveland Guardians atop the AL Central. Without their best player, it may be an uphill climb for the Tigers to make the postseason for the third straight season after falling in the ALDS each of the past two years.
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