DETROIT — Detroit Tigers fans have been pointing to this weekend’s three-game series against the Chicago Cubs as a measuring stick.
Comerica Park was buzzing Friday night as the best pitcher in baseball, Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal, faced the major league’s top-hitting offense in the series opener, while Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, one of the game’s most exciting young players, matched up against former Cubs shortstop Javier Báez, whom Crow-Armstrong was traded for in the summer of 2021.
“It should set up for a pretty fun weekend in Detroit,” Skubal said earlier this week in Chicago. “They’ve already posted stuff about how tickets are standing-room only. It’ll be fun and a good series. That’s a good team, a good lineup. They kind of do everything well.”
So do the Tigers, who came in with baseball’s best record at 41-23. The Cubs were right behind them at 39-23 and had the majors’ best run differential at plus-106.
Even so, Cubs manager Craig Counsell wouldn’t take a bite out of the apple when asked if this resonated more than any other series.
“Look, it’s a series in June,” Counsell said. “There are going to be a lot of people here this weekend. That’s fun for our players. They love that. It’s a challenge against a good team. We love that. But other than that, it’s three games. That’s how you’ve got to treat it.”
That’s why Counsell is a manager and not a hype man. He never wavers in his lifelong pursuit of treating every day the same.
But he knew fans and media would supersize this series into a made-for-October matchup in early June. Facing Skubal — the 2024 AL Cy Young Award winner — would be a monumental challenge for the Cubs, who just finished a 21-game stretch against sub-.500 teams with a 16-5 record.
In his previous 10 starts, Skubal had 89 strikeouts to only three walks — the first pitcher in major-league history to post those numbers in a 10-game span during the same season. His 14.14-1 strikeouts-to-walks ratio coming in was nearly double the next-closest competitor, and he had a 14-1 record and 1.95 ERA in 22 starts at Comerica Park since the start of the 2024 season.
Hitters facing Skubal know he’s going to throw strikes, so some just try to be aggressive early in the at-bat and hope he makes a mistake sooner or later.
“Hope is not really a strategy,” Counsell correctly said.
Maybe, but as Andy Dufresne said in “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
While Skubal was centerstage Friday, it also was a chance for Crow-Armstrong and the rejuvenated Báez to put on a show for a national streaming audience on Apple TV. With 16 home runs, 53 RBIs and 21 steals, Crow-Armstrong was the only player in the majors with at least 15 home runs, 50 RBI and 20 stolen bases. Báez, who was limited to 80 games last year due to injuries, is hitting .275 and playing four positions, making a bid for the Comeback Player of the Year award.
Cubs President Jed Hoyer dealt Báez and pitcher Trevor Williams to the New York Mets at the 2021 trade deadline for the skinny prospect who was injured in Class A. It broke the hearts of many Cubs fans who grew to love Báez for his eye-opening skills at short and on the basepaths.
Crow-Armstrong isn’t really comparable to Báez, but they both love showing off their skills and playing to the crowds — and swinging at every pitch.
Counsell said it’s easy to see why they’re linked together.
“I absolutely understand it, and the way they both hit — it’s a free-swinging approach to hitting, if that translates well,” Counsell said. “But it’s really the other parts of the game that draws you to them.
“In Javy’s case, it was kind of the flair on defense and the instinctual base running. In Pete’s case, it’s the thing you can do with speed. You can not know much about baseball and sports and say, ‘That kid is fast.’ And that’s fun, and your eyes are drawn to that.”
Báez is OK with the comparisons with Crow-Armstrong.
“If they say that, it’s for a reason,” he said. “He’s been putting up the numbers. I’ve been seeing the type of athlete he is, and he’s a really good athlete. Obviously it’s great for the Cubs that he’s playing really good baseball too. I’m just trying to stay healthy and play the whole season, and hopefully we can play against them in the playoffs.”
That wouldn’t just be the playoffs. It would be the World Series.
If that happens, it would be a rematch of the 1945 World Series, which the Tigers won in seven games. The Cubs and Tigers were aiming for that rematch in 1984 until the Cubs lost to the San Diego Padres in the National League Championship Series after blowing a 2-0 lead in a best-of-five series. That ’84 season would be the Tigers’ last championship.
But that’s not something anyone was thinking about as the series began Friday.
As Counsell said, it’s just three games in June.
Is anyone buying that?