Tarik Skubal will make his first home start since April 23 when the Detroit Tigers host the Chicago White Sox on Friday. It could be one of his last appearances at Comerica Park in a Tigers uniform.

The two-time Cy Young Award winner will be an unrestricted free agent after this season. Unless the Tigers make a dramatic turnaround, they may have little choice but to deal Skubal before the Aug. 3 trade deadline.

Detroit is beginning a 10-game homestand after losing four of five on the road. The Tigers are tied with the Kansas City Royals for last place in the American League Central.

Skubal made a surprisingly quick return from non-invasive surgery on his pitching elbow. He had the procedure done during the first week of May and made his first major league start since the operation on Saturday. He lasted 4 2/3 innings and 80 pitches against the Cleveland Guardians, giving up three runs (two earned) and five hits.

He walked one and struck out four in a 3-1 loss.

Skubal wasn’t pleased with his outing.

“I need to be better, plain and simple. ‘Just happy to be there,’ that’s a loser mentality to me,” he said.

Skubal won’t be competing for the Tigers much longer unless the team gets back in the playoff hunt.

“I don’t think about (the trade-deadline implications) a lot,” Skubal told the Detroit News. “I try not to let that consume me because I need to worry about what I’m doing today. That way I can go perform on Friday. Just worry how I stack five really good work days so I can go out there and be ready to compete.

“But there’s also the reality part to it. Everybody, the whole room, needs to focus on winning tonight’s game, winning a series, winning the next series and just let it snowball.”

The Tigers didn’t win either series on their road trip. Their lone victory came on Monday when Colt Keith hit three home runs in a 9-3 victory at Houston.

“The urgency is heightened based on the hole that we’re in and where we are at with our win total,” manager A.J. Hinch said of the homestand.

Skubal (3-3, 2.81 ERA) has an 8-2 record and 3.72 ERA in 11 career starts against the White Sox.

Chicago’s starting pitcher on Friday, Erick Fedde (2-5, 4.50 ERA), is 0-1 with a 4.35 ERA in four career outings (three starts) against the Tigers. He allowed two runs and four hits in four innings during a relief outing against Detroit on May 29.

Fedde had a disastrous May in which he posted a 9.00 ERA in five appearances. He has only given up one earned run in 12 2/3 innings across three June outings, including 2 2/3 innings of scoreless relief against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday.

The White Sox are tied with Cleveland for first place in the AL Central despite the loss of slugger Munetaka Murakami, who had 20 homers before sustaining a hamstring injury against Detroit on May 29. Chicago has won five of its past eight games.

“They haven’t skipped a beat,” White Sox manager Will Venable said of his players. “I think it really speaks to what our offense was when we did have Mune. As good as he is, we’re getting contributions from everywhere. I think that’s evident now. You take him out of it and the guys are still performing well. Obviously, we want him back in that lineup, but the guys are doing a great job without him.”

The latest player to come through for Chicago was Andrew Benintendi. His pinch-hit grand slam in the eighth inning on Thursday lifted the White Sox to a 5-1 win over the host New York Yankees, allowing Chicago to salvage the finale of a three-game series.

–Field Level Media

Although riding quite the hot streak at the plate, Pete Crow-Armstrong was quick to pour cold water on the Chicago Cubs’ recent run of success.

After all, back-to-back series wins — against the two worst teams in the National League, mind you — came right after Chicago posted a 0-9-1 record in their previous 10 series.

Crow-Armstrong and the Cubs will look to continue a successful homestand on Friday afternoon when they open a three-game series against the Toronto Blue Jays.

“I’m not gonna buy into (the team turning the corner) yet, I want to keep stacking (wins),” Crow-Armstrong told Marquee Sports Network. “I think what I’m happiest about is coming out after a loss and getting a W the next day. I think that’s what was really consistent about this team last year and really strong and important.”

Crow-Armstrong homered in his third consecutive contest on Wednesday, helping Chicago to an 8-6 victory over the Colorado Rockies in the decisive game of their series. He has hit safely in eight straight games and 20 of his last 21 overall to boost his batting average from .223 to a team-leading .276.

Dansby Swanson also homered on Wednesday for the Cubs, who recorded their first home series win since beginning May with back-to-back sweeps of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Cincinnati Reds.

“If you just focus on winning every series from here on out, I think we’ll be pretty pleased with where we end up. We just gotta keep on going,” Swanson said after the win.

Toronto right-hander Kevin Gausman (4-4, 3.41 ERA) will look to keep Crow-Armstrong and company in check when he makes the start on Friday afternoon.

Gausman saw his winless stretch extend to four games on Saturday despite allowing one solo homer as the lone hit allowed over seven innings in a no-decision against the New York Yankees.

“My split’s been cutting,” Gausman said. “I’ve been throwing a lot of splits that I’ve been getting away with and luckily I haven’t gotten beat by many. I expect that pitch to be my bread and butter. So I needed to figure it out and (Saturday) was definitely a step in the right direction.”

Gausman is 3-4 with a 5.45 ERA in eight career appearances (seven starts) against the Cubs.

The Blue Jays polished off a three-game series sweep of the Boston Red Sox with a 4-3 victory on Thursday afternoon.

Brandon Valenzuela hit a go-ahead RBI double with two outs in the ninth inning to give Toronto its first sweep since winning all three contests versus the Athletics in the opening series of the season.

“It’s been no secret that our (pitching) staff has been carrying us for a little bit. It was about time our bats wake up and put everything together,” Valenzuela told Sportsnet.

The Cubs did not announce their starter for the series opener, however right-hander Ben Brown (3-2, 1.74) is a likely candidate.

Brown, 26, allowed one run in five innings of a 6-1 victory over the San Francisco Giants last Saturday. He has yielded just three runs on 15 hits in his last four games, going 2-0 during that stretch.

Brown yielded one run on four hits in four innings of a no-decision in his lone appearance against the Blue Jays in August of last season.

–Field Level Media

The New York Yankees and Cincinnati Reds saw injuries sideline their marquee players on May 31. The teams have responded in very different ways since.

Entering the opener of a three-game series Friday night in New York, the Yankees own a respectable record since losing Aaron Judge to a stress fracture in his right rib cage. Meanwhile, the Reds are struggling since losing Elly De La Cruz to a strained right hamstring.

New York is 9-5 since Judge last played in a 13-8 win over the host Athletics. When Judge landed on the injured list, the team announced he would be evaluated in four to six weeks.

The Yankees, despite making a pair of baserunning mistakes and getting only a homer from Ryan McMahon in a 5-1 home loss to the Chicago White Sox on Thursday, are performing better than they did during Judge’s last long-term injury. In 2023, he fractured a toe and missed nearly two months, and the team went 19-23 without him.

“Good players that are playing with real purpose,” manager Aaron Boone said Thursday regarding how the Yankees are getting by without their star slugger. “We’ve been able to win in a lot of different ways.”

Before Camilo Doval allowed a pinch-hit grand slam to Andrew Benintendi in the eighth inning on Thursday, the Yankees had won four games in a row while scoring 33 runs and totaling 46 hits. That surge came despite the absence of Judge, Giancarlo Stanton (sidelined since late April due to a right calf strain) and Trent Grisham (out since straining his right hamstring on June 12).

Among New York’s hottest hitters of late is Paul Goldschmidt, who has a .395 average (17-for-43) during a 10-game hitting streak. Another is Ben Rice, who is hitting .325 (25-for-77) in his past 19 games.

Cincinnati is 5-10 since losing De La Cruz, though the shortstop is expected to begin a minor league rehab assignment Friday. Since De La Cruz got hurt, the Reds are hitting .217 and the trio of Spencer Steer, Eugenio Suarez and Sal Stewart are struggling.

In June, Steer is batting 6-for-46 (.130), Suarez is hitting .185 (10-for-54) and Stewart is hitting .214 (12-for-56).

The Reds are 15-27 since winning 20 of their first 31 games. Cincinnati has scored three runs or fewer in nine of its past 15 games, including a 9-1 home loss to the New York Mets on Wednesday.

After scoring 17 runs while winning twice over the Mets, the Reds allowed 15 hits in the series finale. That figure equaled the second-highest total against Cincinnati this season.

“I do think for us to be the team we want to be, we have to play very clean baseball,” Reds manager Terry Francona said. “We haven’t done that as well as we’d like to.”

New York’s Cam Schlittler (7-3, 1.82 ERA) will face the Reds for the first time as he attempts to halt a personal three-start winless stretch. Since a win at Kansas City on May 26, the right-hander is 0-1 with a 3.18 ERA.

Schlittler has allowed one run or none in 10 of his 15 starts, including Saturday in Toronto, when he yielded one run on six hits in seven innings.

Right-hander Rhett Lowder (3-3, 4.60 ERA), who is 0-2 with a 7.00 ERA in his past five outings, opens the series for the Reds. Lowder has pitched better since missing a month with a right shoulder injury, allowing one run in a total of 8 2/3 innings over two starts.

He will be opposing the Yankees for the first time.

–Field Level Media