HOUSTON — Tarik Skubal kept up his stellar season with a sensational playoff debut and the Detroit Tigers got to Framber Valdez early in a 3-1 win over the Houston Astros in their American League Wild Card Series opener Tuesday.
The Tigers, swept in the AL Division Series in their last trip to the playoffs in 2014, got their first postseason win since Game 4 the 2013 AL Championship Series against the Boston Red Sox.
Down 3-0 entering the ninth, Houston scored on Yainer Diaz‘s RBI single and had the bases loaded when Jason Heyward hit a game-ending lineout against Beau Brieske.
Game 2 of the best-of-three series is Wednesday in Houston.
Skubal, the AL pitching Triple Crown winner, gave up only four singles and walked one in six innings. About the only hard hit by the Astros off him was one that hit him — the left-hander was struck on his right wrist by Diaz’s second-inning line drive.
He became the first pitching Triple Crown winner to win his first postseason start in the same season since Sandy Koufax tossed a 15-strikeout complete game in a 5-2 win in Game 1 of the 1963 World Series at Yankee Stadium.
“It was a good challenge,” Skubal said. “It was fun. It was a ton of fun. I enjoyed it. It’s probably the most nervous I’ve been since my debut. That was also fun to deal with. What a game. It was fun, glad to come out with a win.”
Yordan Alvarez, playing for the first time since spraining his right knee Sept. 22, doubled off Jason Foley to start the ninth inning. Pinch runner Zach Dezenzo moved to third on Alex Bregman‘s infield single and Diaz singled on a grounder to right.
Jeremy Pena sacrificed, Brieske relieved and Victor Caratini flied out to short left. Chas McCormick walked to load the bases, but Brieske retired Heyward for the save.
The AL West champions were hurt by yet another playoff flop from Valdez, who went 0-3 in the postseason last year. Houston’s ace ranked third in the AL with a 2.91 ERA in the regular season but gave up three runs and seven hits in just 4⅓ innings Tuesday.
“Skubal has been really good all year,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “We had a few chances there in the middle of the game, and we couldn’t capitalize. But credit to him. He made pitches. And we battled until the end. We had a shot there in the ninth, and we just couldn’t get a big hit.”
Detroit pounced on him in the second. Wenceel Perez singled with one out before Spencer Torkelson walked and Parker Meadows grounded into a forceout that left runners at the corners.
The Tigers had a runner on third with two outs in the third when Peña made a diving catch at shortstop on Torkelson’s liner.
It was a return to Houston for Detroit manager A.J. Hinch, who led the Astros to a championship in 2017, and last managed a postseason game in the Astros’ loss in Game 7 of the 2019 World Series.
The following January he was suspended for a year by Major League Baseball and fired the same day for his role in Houston’s sign-stealing scandal.
He joined the Tigers after his suspension was up and guided the team back to the postseason with a 31-13 finish to the regular season.
Hinch improved to 5-0 in postseason openers in his managerial career, the second-most wins without a loss in postseason history, trailing only Earl Weaver’s 6-0 mark.
The Astros, in the postseason for a franchise-record eighth straight season, had won an MLB-record 10 consecutive postseason openers. They played their 98th postseason game since 2017.
Information from ESPN Research and The Associated Press was used in this report.
LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani hit two homers in an 11-5 win over the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night, emphatically ending the three-time MVP’s longest homer drought since joining the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Ohtani led off the bottom of the first with his 24th homer, hammering Landen Roupp‘s fourth pitch 419 feet deep into the right-field bleachers with an exit velocity of 110.3 mph.
The slugger had been in a 10-game homer drought since June 2, going 10-for-40 in that stretch with no RBIs, although he still had an eight-game hitting streak during his power outage.
Ohtani led off the sixth with his 25th homer, sending Tristan Beck‘s breaking ball outside the strike zone into the bleachers in right. He also moved one homer behind the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and Seattle’s Cal Raleigh for the overall major league lead.
Dodgers fans brought him home with a standing ovation as Ohtani produced his third multihomer game of the season and the 22nd of his career.
Ohtani reached base four times and scored three runs in his first four at-bats, drawing two walks to go with his two homers.
Ohtani hadn’t played in 10 straight games without hitting a homer since 2023 in the final 10 games of his six-year tenure with the Los Angeles Angels.
Ohtani had slowed down a bit over the past two weeks after he was named the NL Player of the Month for May with a formidable performance, racking up 15 homers and 28 RBIs.
First, he said last weekend that he would rather retire than pitch for the Yankees because his father was drafted by New York twice before being traded.
Then, he went out and beat the Yankees.
A few days after his comments about never wanting to pitch for New York, he had to defend his dad’s story about being drafted by the Yankees in response to a New York Post article that cited multiple official databases and the Yankees’ own records that couldn’t confirm Lance Dobbins ever played with the organization.
On Saturday night, Dobbins (4-1) followed up by going six shutout innings in Boston’s 4-3 victory over New York, his second win over the Yankees in less than a week.
“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “I’m more worried about just the win column, whether it’s against them or anybody. My job is to try and help this team win as many ballgames as we can, and pitch in meaningful playoff baseball games. That’s what I’m more focused on.”
But he realizes what it means to the fan base in this longtime rivalry, with the Red Sox fans heard chanting about the Yankees outside the park before he spoke in an interview room.
“Yeah, I love being able to perform and get those wins for the fans here,” he said. “They deserve it. It’s a great city, passionate fan base, so being able to get those wins — especially twice in one week — means a lot and looking forward to trying to build on that going forward.”
In his victory over New York last Sunday, Dobbins held the Yankees to three runs over five innings, two on a first-inning homer by Aaron Judge.
On Saturday night, Judge went 0-for-3 against him, striking out twice on curveballs.
“It was just kind of scouting,” Dobbins said of his game plan against New York’s slugger after Garrett Crochet struck him out three times in the series opener Friday.
“Crochet has an electric fastball. I can throw it hard, but the shape isn’t quite as elite,” he said. “So we knew we had better weapons to go at him with, so I felt like we did a good job of kind of keeping a balanced attack throughout the order.”
Dobbins struck out five and gave up only two singles Saturday.
ATLANTA — Kyle Farmer just shrugged when asked about being part of a Colorado Rockies team that has the fewest wins through 70 games since the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.
“We don’t care,” Farmer said after Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the Atlanta Braves left Colorado with a 13-57 record.
The Rockies have the fourth-fewest wins by any team through their first 70 decisions in a season in MLB history, and the fewest since the 1899 Spiders won 12 of their first 70 decisions. Colorado (.186 win percentage) is currently on pace to go 30-132 this season.
“I mean, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Farmer said. “It is what it is. We’ve just got to show up tomorrow and play. There’s nothing you can really say about it except that if it happens, it happens.”
The Rockies made more inglorious history by setting a franchise nine-inning record with 19 strikeouts. That’s a lot of futility for one team to absorb in one day.
The 19 strikeouts by Braves pitchers also set an Atlanta record for a nine-inning game. Spencer Strider recorded 13 strikeouts in six innings, followed by relievers Rafael Montero and Dylan Lee, who combined for six more whiffs.
The only bright spot for the Rockies was the encouraging start by rookie right-hander Chase Dollander, a native of Evans, Georgia, who allowed four runs, three earned, in six innings.
The Rockies have 10 fewer wins than the Chicago White Sox, who have the second-worst record in the majors at 23-48.
Dollander said “just having a neutral mindset” is the key to remaining positive through a season already filled with low points for the team.
“Don’t ride the roller coaster,” Dollander said. “You know, there’s going to be lots of ups and downs in this game. This game is really hard. So it’s just, you know, staying neutral and we just keep going.”
Dollander was the No. 9 overall pick in the 2023 summer draft. Among other top young players on the team are catcher Hunter Goodman, who might return to Atlanta for the All-Star Game on July 15, and outfielders Jordan Beck and Brenton Doyle.
“You know we’re going to have our time,” Dollander said. “I mean, it’s just one of those things that you kind of learn as you go. I’ve been very fortunate to be here for a little bit now, and I can help us going forward.”
The 34-year-old Farmer said one of his jobs is to help the younger players endure the losses.
“For sure, keeping guys accountable and teaching them the right way to do stuff,” said Farmer, the first baseman whose double off Strider was one of only four hits for the Rockies.
“Keeping their heads up and they’ve got to show up each day and play, no matter our record. It’s your job and you worked your whole life to get here. Enjoy it. This is a great opportunity for a young guy to show what they can do.”