Two-time reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal has given the slumping Detroit Tigers a reality check with the trade deadline on the horizon.

“The reality is we need to play better baseball or else, come the deadline, you give the front office an option to reassess where this team is,” Skubal told The Detroit News earlier this week in a story published Thursday. “And if they don’t think what we have is a World Series — or playoff-caliber — team, then the whole team is going to look different. That’s just the nature of the beast.”

Skubal, a left-hander, will make his second start Friday since undergoing surgery May 6 to remove bone fragments from his pitching elbow. The Tigers and Chicago White Sox open a three-game series on Friday.

He lost his return game on Saturday, with the Cleveland Guardians winning 3-1. Skubal gave up three runs (two earned) on five hits in 4 2/3 innings.

The Tigers have lost four of their past five games and sit 9 1/2 games in back of the White Sox and Guardians, who are tied for first place in the American League Central.

“The future for a lot of people in this room — not just myself — the outlook could look very much different in two months and it all comes to an abrupt end,” Skubal told The Detroit News. “We still control our destiny a little bit. We still do.

“We play the team this weekend that’s winning our division. It’s another big series. You don’t want to be playing playoff baseball in June, but it feels like we’re playing playoff baseball. We don’t have very much room for error, and everyone understands that. Everyone understands there has to be a sense of urgency. There has to be. Not panic. But there has to be a sense of urgency to try to win every game we play.”

Skubal, 29, is 3-3 with a 2.81 ERA in eight starts this season. He has struck out 49 batters and walked only seven in 48 innings.

He has a 57-40 record and a 3.06 ERA in seven seasons and 145 games (142 starts) for the Tigers since 2020. He has struck out 938 batters compared to 179 walks in 814 2/3 innings.

–Field Level Media

We’ve made it through another week and scarily the halfway point of the MLB season is nearly upon us.

Let’s try to head to the beach with a couple winning MLB Picks.

Season Record 37-34-1, +0.26 Units

Brewers at Braves

Brewers F5 -0.5 (-125 Caesars)

Nobody beats The Miz!….ok you had to be there.

But yes, The Miz, Jacob Misiorowski, travels to Atlanta to take on Martin Perez and the Braves. Until yesterday’s rainout, it set up as this year’s overwhelming NL Cy Young favorite vs. the 2024 winner and future HOFer. But Sale got pushed back unfortunately.

The Miz as you probably know has looked downright insane lately, capped off with a complete game 15 K, 1 hit masterpiece vs. the Phillies last time out. He flashed 104 MPH hit and faced the minimum 27 batters with a Game Score of 107 that best I can tell is the highest ever. On the year he has a 1.34 ERA and 0.74 WHIP with a crazy 39.8% K%. Control was his big question mark going into the season, but his 6.7% BB% is actually good.

Normally the price on Miz games is so tilted it’s hard to come up with a play. But it’s at least reasonable here as he’s on the road against a good team. And Perez has pitched very well this year, sporting a 2.90 ERA and 1.05 WHIP. But the Brewers are scorching hot vs. lefties with a 134 wRC+ vs. southpaws over the past month. Meanwhile it’s not the full Braves as Ronald Acuna Jr. is back on the IL and Michael Harris II is in and out of the lineup lately. Let’s take the Miz and Brewers here.

Red Sox at Mariners

Mariners F5 -0.5 (-105 BetMGM)

We’ve got a bit of a banged up Mariners team here hosting the reeling Red Sox. Randy Arozerena is on the IL at least until next week, while Julio Rodriguez missed yesterday’s game. On the flip side, Cal Raleigh has returned, as has JP Crawford.

It’s another top notch pitching matchup with Ranger Suarez (3.21 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 17.1% K-BB%) goes up against Bryce Miller (1.54 ERA, 0.71 WHIP, 24.8% K-BB%). Ostensibly facing a lefty should pose big trouble for the Mariners as they’re not the deepest lineup in the league to begin with and it takes too good lefty platoon bats out of the lineup in Dominic Canzone and Luke Raley. In their place we get Rob Refsnyder who’s slashing a brutal .143/.214/.242 on the year and….one of Mitch Garver (.200/.327/.322) or the recently called up Connor Joe.

So take the Red Sox at plus money here, right? Well, as Lee Corso would say, “not so fast my friend!”

The Mariners still have the better pitcher, and they’re also not hitting that badly vs. lefties lastly as they have a 107 wRC+ vs. southpaws over the past month. Meanwhile Boston is in a bunch of spots where they have had just brutal results in 2026. On the F5 run line they are 9-12 with a -21.3% ROI as underdogs as well as 12-22 with a -32.6% ROI on the road and an impossibly bad 15-38 with a -45.3% ROI vs. righty starters. Let’s roll with the Mariners here.

Toronto Tempo guards Brittney Sykes and Kiki Rice will be out of the lineup for the foreseeable future with their respective injuries, the expansion team announced Friday.

Rice, a rookie, sustained a Grade 3 ankle sprain on June 3, and Sykes suffered a plantar fascia injury on Tuesday. The players will be re-evaluated in the coming weeks, per the team, with the expectation that they will return at some point this season.

Sykes, 32, was helped off the court in the third quarter of Toronto’s 131-91 loss to the Indiana Fever on Tuesday. She averages a team-best 20.1 points per game along with 3.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists in 15 games this season.

Rice, 22, is averaging 12.7 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 10 games this season. She played for national champion UCLA and was the sixth overall pick of the 2026 WNBA Draft.

The Tempo will play the Connecticut Sun on the road Friday night.

–Field Level Media