Tarik Skubal and three relievers combined on a three-hit shutout and Spencer Torkelson had two hits to boost the visiting Detroit Tigers to a 1-0 victory against the Chicago White Sox on Thursday in the season opener for both teams.
Skubal (1-0) outdueled Chicago counterpart Garrett Crochet in a game that took two hours, three minutes to complete. The lefty Skubal spaced three hits and six strikeouts across six innings before yielding to Shelby Miller, Andrew Chafin and Jason Foley.
Foley struck out the last two batters to record the save. Detroit pitching had 11 strikeouts and zero walks compared to 11 strikeouts and one walk for the White Sox.
A left-hander making his 73rd major league appearance but first career start, Crochet pitched effectively to keep Chicago afloat.
Crochet retired the first four batters he faced, including three via strikeout, as his slider command had the Tigers off-base.
Detroit opened the scoring in the third inning. Tigers shortstop Javier Baez led off with a single, stole second base and advanced to third on Parker Meadows' groundout. He scored one batter later on RBI sacrifice fly by Andy Ibanez.
It stood up as the game's lone run. Crochet (0-1) scattered five hits, all singles, in six innings with eight strikeouts against zero walks while throwing 61 of his 87 pitches for strikes.
Luis Robert Jr., Eloy Jimenez and Andrew Vaughn singled for the White Sox.
Tigers second baseman Colt Keith registered his first hit in his MLB debut.
Deivi Garcia, Michael Kopech and Dominic Leone each contributed an inning of scoreless relief for the White Sox. Kopech kept the game at 1-0 when he fanned Matt Vierling with the bases loaded to end the eighth.
White Sox fans routinely booed Baez, who spent the first eight-plus seasons of his career with the crosstown Chicago Cubs before the club traded him to the New York Mets in 2021.
After catching a pop-up to end the bottom of the second, Baez earned jeers for throwing the ball into the screen near the White Sox dugout on the third-base side.
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