Last Night In Baseball: The Tigers Blew What Might Be Tarik Skubal’s Last Start

There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves. Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball: Oh Tigers, what could have been. Tarik Skubal, in what very well might have been his final start with Detroit — as a pending free agent on a team that is half-in, half-out of postseason contention, it really depends on what the offers are — threw 6 ⅔ innings of one-run ball with the Tigers up 7-1… and then the bullpen arrived on the scene. Earlier, Skubal recorded the 1,000th strikeout of his MLB career, and received a standing ovation for hitting that round number. And the Tigers scored their first runs due to sloppy Orioles’ defense, which felt pretty in line with the previous day, in which Detroit won 14-0 against Baltimore. Things all fell apart in a hurry, however. Skubal allowed a run on a single by outfielder Leody Taveras, and then was removed from the game for reliever Kyle Finnegan. He entered with two of Skubal’s runners still on, and failed to strand either of them despite there already being two outs. Finnegan walked second baseman Jeremiah Jackson to begin, then gave up a single to pinch-hitter Jackson Holliday that scored both of the inherited runners. Holliday then stole second base and Finnegan gave up another RBI single to left fielder Taylor Word — 7-5, Detroit. Drew Anderson then relieved Finnegan and got the final out of the inning, but the O’s weren’t done yet. Shortstop Gunnar Henderson walked and then pinch-hitter Dylan Beavers reached on a fielder’s choice. The runners were moved over on a ground out by third baseman Christian Encarnacion-Strand, and then Mayo blasted a triple to score both runners and tie the game. The game would end up in extras, still 7-7, and it would take until the 11th for the Orioles to score — Baltimore put two on the board, but the Tigers’ offense once again woke up when first baseman Spencer Torkelson hit the 100th homer of his career and No. 20 of 2026 to force a 12th inning. Ward began the 12th on second, and reliever Drew Sommers managed to retire first baseman Pete Alonso and Henderson, putting Detroit an out away from ending the inning. Instead, Colton Cowser, who had entered in the game as a defensive replacement earlier, ended up being the hero. Detroit didn’t score in the bottom of the 12th, and the Orioles had officially come back from down 7-0 to win 10-9. The Tigers are 51-58, six games back in the AL Central and 4.5 back of a wild-card spot, and have to be seriously wondering if the risk of holding on to Skubal is worth it in a crowded postseason picture. The Tigers might be genuinely good after a rough start to the year, but they dug an early hole and have seven teams ahead of them in the wild-card standings and just four behind. Much to think about. What a rough week for the Phillies so far… but a great one for the Marlins. Fresh off a 12-game losing streak — the longest in franchise history — the Marlins are suddenly looking like they did when they were MLB’s best team back in June. Miami completed a sweep of Philadelphia on Wednesday, and did it despite being down 6-0 after the top of the fifth inning. Shortstop Otto Lopez grounded out but drove in a run to get the Marlins on the board in the bottom of the fifth, then left fielder Heriberto Hernández donged dinger No. 16 to make it 6-3. In the bottom of the seventh, Lopez struck again with an RBI single, and then second baseman Xavier Edwards drove in Lopez and another runner to tie this thing up, 6-6. In the bottom of the eighth — with his dad, Mr. Marlin himself, in attendance — Griffin Conine belted a go-ahead two-run homer 424 feet off Jonathan Bowlan. Miami had not just come back from down 6-0, but were now up, 8-6, and would win with that as the final score. The Phillies have now fallen into a tie with the Diamondbacks for the NL’s second wild-card spot, with both teams just 1.5 games up on the Padres — also victorious on Wednesday in a two-game sweep of the Rockies — and two games ahead of the Marlins, Pirates and Nationals. The Red Sox used closer Aroldis Chapman in a tie game in the ninth inning, and were rewarded for the decision. Chapman allowed one Athletics hitter to reach base but otherwise had a clean inning, and it gave Boston a chance to come to the plate again. There, shortstop Andrew Monasterio came to the plate as the leadoff hitter, against new reliever José Suarez, and crushed a two-run homer to put the Sox ahead, 4-2. The Sox didn’t go to Chapman again, but relieved him with Greg Weissert, who struck out two and retired the A’s in order for the extra-inning W. Boston is now 56-51, with a 19-4 record in July — it’s the only month in which the Red Sox don’t have a losing record, but it’s undone so much of the early damage of the season all at once. The Astros are another team that had a terrible start to the year but have since come around. While it’s been a slower burn than Boston’s, Houston managed to get to .500 on the season on Wednesday with a win against the Angels. Los Angeles went up 3-0 in the first inning, but Houston scored a run each in the second and third frames. In the sixth, the Astros scored all they would need for the rest of the game. First on a two-run double by right fielder Cam Smith… …and then another run on a wild pitch. Houston wasn’t done plating runs, though. And the next one was even more embarrassing than giving up a run on a wild pitch. Houston is just one game back of both an AL wild-card spot and the AL West lead, as the Rangers lost on Wednesday to narrow the gap on the latter. It didn’t seem like things were going to go this way at first. It was Cam Schlittler vs. Davis Martin in a battle of top pitchers on the Yankees and White Sox, but Martin allowed four first-run innings to put Chicago into an early hole. DH Andrew Benintendi knocked an RBI double to put the White Sox on the board in the seventh, and then back-to-back jacks in the eighth tied the game up, 4-4. Left fielder Sam Antonacci hit a two-run shot, followed by Munetaka Murakami hitting yet another dinger over 400 feet for his 23rd of the season. The game would end up in extras, where the Yankees would score in the 11th, for the first time since that four-run first. Things took a turn in the bottom of the inning, however: a pickoff attempt at third by catcher Ali Sánchez went awry, allowing Murakami to score the tying run and force a 12th inning. There, Edgar Quero — who had entered the game as a pinch-hitter earlier — drove in the winning run with a single. The White Sox came from behind and walked the Yankees off, and now have a chance on Thursday for a series split. Chicago is 1.5 up on the Twins in the AL Central, owing to the two having the same number of wins while Minnesota is saddled with three more defeats. The Cardinals were looking like a genuine threat for a postseason spot for a bit there, but after a 13-12 June, St. Louis is now just 10-16 in July. Sure, the Cards have only been outscored by a few runs this month, so there’s some bad luck involved, but a team can only have so much bad luck when the races are as close as they have been in 2026. After losing the first two games of this series with the Cubs, St. Louis managed to keep Chicago scoreless through nine innings. The problem was that Chicago also had a shutout going through the first nine innings, so, on to extras the two went. There, center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong hit a 424-foot, two-run homer in the 10th, and it looked like maybe that would be it for St. Louis once more. Not so, though! Right fielder Jordan Walker pushed the bonus runner across on a ground out, but managed to be safe at first himself, leaving two runners on. That setup the next batter, DH Iván Herrera, to win the game, and that he did with a two-run double to left. The Cardinals are still in a tough spot, at 54-54, but while that has them 13 games out in the NL central, St. Louis is just 2.5 back for an NL wild-card spot. The Mets and Braves played a doubleheader on Wednesday thanks to a rainout on Tuesday, and the first of those — like the first game in the series — went to the Mets. Which brought Atlanta’s record against New York this season — a year in which the Braves have been great and the Mets have, uh, not — to 3-6, as well as one more loss away from being swept. Luckily for Atlanta, Chris Sale was there to do his part in keeping things from getting any worse on those notes. Sale shoved for six innings, with nine strikeouts without a walk and just two hits allowed, then handed things off to a Braves’ bullpen that kept the shutout going. Christian Scott was great on the mound for the Mets, too, but slightly worse than Sale: first baseman Matt Olson hit a grounder up the middle in the sixth inning to drive in the one and only run of the game for either side, and that was that. The Mets have nothing to be ashamed of here, especially having won the first two games in the series, but that’s still a disappointing result for New York when a sweep was that close. And it’s a sigh of relief kind of W for the Braves, for obvious reasons, and good thing beyond those: next up on the schedule is a four-game set against the wild-card-contending Nationals, then three against the Marlins before taking on the Yankees. The Mariners had the Dodgers’ number in the first two games of this series, but on Wednesday, Los Angeles finally logged a W against Seattle. The Dodgers went up 4-0 through six, with center fielder Andy Pages driving in two of the first three runs on a homer and a single, respectively, and then Shohei Ohtani doubling in the fourth one in the sixth. Things got a little dicier from there, but only so much. With starter Eric Lauer out of the game after six shutout innings, the Mariners got to the Dodgers’ bullpen a bit, scoring a run off of Tanner Scott courtesy an RBI single by second baseman Cole Young, then first baseman Josh Naylor hit his 15th double of the year to plate another run in the ninth. That would be all Seattle could muster, however — on Thursday, the Dodgers will try to earn a series split, while the Mariners go for the series dub. Here’s some news you can use before those afternoon games: Royals’ longtime catcher and DH Salvador Perez hit his first triple since 2022 on Wednesday, in a 4-0 win against the Twins. Perez crushed this one, hitting it 411 feet to center and nearly 102 mph off his bat off starter Joe Ryan. Mercifully, the 36-year-old, 15-year veteran with miles and miles on his legs was driven in later in the inning, so all that running wasn’t for nothing.