How Detroit’s ‘Skubal and everybody else’ pitching approach presents problems and advantages for the Guardians

Now set to open a second playoff series with chaos on the mound working, Tigers manager AJ Hinch does not see any reason to change things.

Detroit traded away a solid starter in Jack Flaherty and relievers Andrew Chafin and Ricky Vanasco at the end of July prompting the need for creativity when it came to covering innings, but also opening up opportunities for young relievers such as Tyler Holton, Brenan Hanifee, and Brant Hurter.

“We were starting to promote young pitchers who are still in their development cycle of becoming the pitchers that they’re going to be,” Hinch said. “And we realized we had a lot of strengths and we had guys that could do a lot of different things and they came from different angles and different approaches. Some are fastball heavy, some are slider happy. Some are change-up artists.”

So as the Tigers pieced together player by player how they best thought they could break the newcomers in, they landed on shorter outings mixed with a bit more strategic deployment, including who they faced first and what innings they were used.

“When it starts to work, the player buy-in multiplies,” Hinch said. “Guys start having fun with it, our willingness to try anything. We started to think, as teams were having a hard time responding to this type of strategy, why change it?”

Hinch confirmed Friday that Holton will start Game 1 for the Tigers. In a span of seven days July 23-30 he made three starts as an opener against the Guardians as an opener. Cleveland won two of those three games.

Skubal, who won 18 games and is the presumptive favorite to take home this year’s AL Cy Young Award, will start Game 2, but the day off in between games will help give Hinch’s bullpen the rest it needs to be as flexible as possible in the series opener.

Hinch said the familiarity between two division rivals does not mean either team is going to cut corners on preparation.

“If anything, you’re going to do it more to make sure you’re not missing anything because of that familiarity,” Hinch said. “It’s nice and convenient.”

Vogt said Cleveland will be ready for any situation that comes its way.

“We’re always prepared for anything that may come our way, and obviously we’re familiar with the Tigers and the bullpen strategies that they’ve deployed,” Vogt said. “We’ll be ready for kind of anything that gets thrown our way. We prepare for everything.”

Catcher Austin Hedges said Cleveland’s hitters will not deviate too far from their approach, despite the chaos facing them on the mound.

“There’s not too many different plans to have in the batter’s box,” Hedges said. “Our team does a really good job of staying true to themselves and what our identity is. No matter really who we’re facing, the plan doesn’t really change off of what you’re looking for.”

Hedges said with so many new faces in Detroit’s lineup and on the mound, the Guardians will have to rely a lot more on data instead of experience.

“It’s just like a normal season where you got to have some type of plan off of the numbers and the data that you get,” Hedges said. “But then also just relying on strengths. Just like we’re going to lean on our pitchers strengths and what makes them great. That’s what we did all year.”

Outfielder Lane Thomas said there is plenty of information available to hitters, but the key is to take what works best for you and apply it to each at-bat. It is different from hitter to hitter.

“Just knowing what kind of fastball and what secondary stuff they have and kind of building a plan around that is I think the most important part,” Thomas said. “Not changing that as the at-bat goes along. Just going up there with a plan and rolling with it.”