For Tarik Skubal and Matthew Boyd, ALDS Game 2 is more than just a meeting between rivals
CLEVELAND — Baseball has a way. This game can loosen ends and tie them back together. It can create storylines, dismantle them, and then bring a plot full circle. The sport unites and divides and connects again.
Such will be the case Monday when Tarik Skubal and Matthew Boyd face off as starting pitchers for their respective teams in Game 2 of the American League Division Series. Boyd will start for the Cleveland Guardians as a pitcher who has rebuilt his arm and his career, serving as a valued member of a discombobulated rotation who helped the Guardians secure the AL Central division crown.
Skubal does so as a ninth-round pick who morphed into a full-fledged ace, carrying a heavy load for an underdog team that has staged an unlikely run to the postseason.
Their history together dates to 2018, when Boyd was an emerging pitcher and Skubal was still nobody. Boyd was with the Tigers on a road trip in Seattle. A camera crew followed as he visited his old haunts. Boyd's former high-school field was among the stops. The diamond had since been renovated and became home to Seattle University's baseball program.
On that visit, Boyd talked with Seattle coach Donny Harrel, someone he had known for years. Over by the bullpen, Harrel pointed to a big lefty with long hair who had just wrapped a throwing session.
"That guy that just threw a bullpen," Harrel told Boyd, "he's a first-round talent. But he's gonna fall in the draft. He's special."
Later that summer, during the MLB Draft, Boyd kept tabs on the Tigers' selections. When he saw the team picked a pitcher from Seattle in the ninth round, he called Harrel.
"Is this the guy?" he asked.
"You bet," Harrel said. "You guys got a steal."
First, they were teammates. Only two years after that bullpen, the world was at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Skubal had just been called up after proving Harrel correct, rocketing through the minor leagues and making his debut at age 22.
Skubal in those days still came across as serious and shy. His first handful of outings in the major leagues were a struggle. He was trying to find his footing in a time and place where everyone felt isolated.
Boyd was the Tigers' Opening Day starter, a beloved clubhouse presence who was giving his all to a rebuilding team that lost 114 games the previous season. When the Tigers opted not to trade him at the 2019 deadline, Boyd turned deep one night in a postgame interview. The lone Tiger to spend his offseasons in Detroit, he spoke of his love for the city and the team. He drew the image of driving south down Interstate 75 and seeing the Detroit skyline. An eternal optimist, he yearned to be part of the Tigers' climb back to glory.
"If you don't think that way, if you don't expect those kinds of things, if you don't call those things into action, into fruition, who else will?" he had said.
Taking a cue from former teammate Justin Verlander , Boyd made a point to host dinners on the road.
"Team dinners are such a fabric of being in the big leagues," Boyd said. "Unfortunately, COVID, we lost a lot of that."
Sensing a problem that needed a solution, Boyd and his teammates found an alternative in that 2020 season. Along with veteran Jordan Zimmerman and rookie Casey Mize , they would locate an upscale steakhouse, order delivery and spread the offerings in a hotel room. They gathered and watched baseball, talked about life.
"A few times," Boyd said, "we even opened a bottle of wine."
For a rookie Skubal, the dinners meant the world. They helped him feel like he belonged in a time where connection was hard to come by.
"We probably weren't supposed to be in each other's rooms," Skubal said.
The following January, Skubal traveled from his Arizona hometown back to Seattle. He stayed with Boyd, as did teammates Daniel Norris and Spencer Turnbull , while he trained at Driveline.
Part of the bond between Skubal and Boyd was a natural product of being together through the grind of a baseball season. Part of it was also a result of the trials they both faced.
Back then, Skubal was a talented prospect still trying to decipher how to unlock his fullest potential. Before he threw one of the filthiest changeups in the league, he was tinkering with grips. Driveline suggested he adopt a splitter, which ended up being a disaster.
Boyd was the Tigers' top pitcher in 2019, when he unleashed a potent slider and struck out 11.6 batters per nine innings. But he could never fully harness all his weapons. A left hamstring injury derailed his mechanics in 2020. By September of 2021, he was headed to the operating table in need of flexor tendon surgery.
Skubal had Tommy John during his sophomore season at Seattle, hence why he fell in the draft. He showed flickers of great promise but was also susceptible to elevated pitch counts and an excess of home run balls — 44 in his first 39 MLB games, to be exact.
Through the ups and the downs came opportunities to talk and grow. The young players viewed Boyd as a mentor.
"I had a lot of discussions with him, just mentally, you're worried about going up and down, how do I just focus on my job?" Skubal said. "And he had a lot of advice and a lot of good stuff for me throughout all that.
"I think that speaks to the guy he is. I think he's the nicest guy in the world. I told him that. Like, 'Dude, you should act a little more mad sometimes.'"
Boyd, though, often said he was learning just as much from young players like Skubal.
"Through that learning, you improve your own game," he once said. "It's always a game of growth and self-awareness."
By 2022, Boyd was still recovering from his flexor tendon surgery when Skubal ended up needing the same procedure on his left arm. Although he was injured, Boyd had signed with the San Francisco Giants — where Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris was then the general manager — and ended up traded to his hometown Mariners , where he made 10 September appearances as the franchise ended a 20-year playoff drought.
The next offseason, Harris' first with the Tigers, Boyd signed back with Detroit. Armed with an improved changeup, he hoped his best days were still ahead. Skubal watched while on the mend as Boyd fell to another misfortune. In his 15th start, he walked off the field in Texas, his arm noticeably limp.
He needed Tommy John surgery.
During another long rehab, Boyd leaned on Skubal, who knew the good and bad of the whole process.
Even as Boyd began the 2024 season at home, he often received texts from Mize and Skubal, checking in on their old friend's recovery.
"I really did lean on Casey and Tarik," Boyd said earlier this year. "Those guys were huge."
When Skubal first saw Boyd had signed with the Guardians, he fired off a playful text.
Traitor.
Truth is Boyd kept close tabs on the Tigers and his friends all spring and into the summer. "Just because I really care about all those guys over there," he said. After outings good or bad, Skubal would often grab his phone from his locker and see a message from Boyd. "Always positive things," Skubal said.
Needing pitching reinforcements, the Guardians signed Boyd on June 29, knowing he was still more than a month from being ready to pitch in the majors. Skubal was so invested in the success of his new intradivision foe he watched some of Boyd's rehab outings in the minor leagues. Skubal texted Boyd after those outings, thinking back to his own experience trying to regain his form after Tommy John.
By the time Boyd was up with the Guardians, the lefty he once mentored was taking names every fifth day. Skubal returned from his flexor tendon surgery in the second half of 2023 to great success. By this season, he grew into an even more fearsome monster. Harnessing the same sizzling stuff he always possessed, his changeup blossomed into a weapon. He consistently attacked the strike zone with aggression.
"It's been so fun to watch him pitch and so so fun to watch him do what he's doing," Boyd said. "I shouldn't say it's a surprise because you could see the writing on the wall when he was rehabbing. The fire there and the determination, how he was going about his rehab ... It's cool to see him kind of reap the fruits of his labor."
As Skubal has asserted himself as one of baseball's best, Boyd has taken steps toward revitalizing a career knocked off track by injury and inconsistency. In eight outings for a Guardians team short on starting pitching, Boyd posted a 2.72 ERA and struck out more than 10 batters per nine. His slider has recaptured its bite. His changeup has proved useful.
"He signs with a team and gets an opportunity to prove that he's healthy," Skubal said, "and he's looked great."
Now these fates collide.
For the first time in 10 seasons, the Tigers are back in the playoffs. Boyd was not able to be part of the team's hard-fought rise. Instead, after his own reclamation and with his team holding a 1-0 series lead, he has a chance to shut it down.
On the other side will be that kid he once heard whispers about in Seattle.
Sitting at a dais Saturday in Cleveland, Skubal thought back to those COVID dinners and grinned.
"Now we're on this stage," Skubal said. "I think that's pretty special. It'll be fun to watch him go play. But I'm going to be rooting against him pretty heavily."
(Top photo of Tarik Skubal and Matthew Boyd in 2020 during spring training with the Tigers: Mark Cunningham /MLB Photos via ))
