Tarik Skubal carries a 4.09 ERA through his first two starts with the Los Angeles Dodgers — a number that stands in clear contrast to the 2.81 ERA he posted over 102.2 innings with Detroit before the August 1 trade deadline. The back-to-back Cy Young winner has joined the most loaded rotation in baseball, and the early returns are, at best, mixed. The obvious question is whether there’s reason to worry. The short answer: not yet.
What He Did in Each Start
His debut came on August 4 at Wrigley Field against the Cubs: six innings, two earned runs, six strikeouts. Skubal pitched well and still took the loss because the Dodgers couldn’t score behind him.
His second start was August 10 at Dodger Stadium against the Kansas City Royals — his home debut in Los Angeles: five innings, three earned runs, six strikeouts and two walks.
The most alarming moment of that second outing wasn’t the ERA — it was a single swing. Jac Caglianone made contact at 110.8 mph, the hardest-hit ball any batter has put on Skubal all season. That kind of contact doesn’t get fixed with mechanical adjustments or new pitch sequences. It just happens.
The Dodgers did come back to win 6-5, thanks to a three-run double by Max Muncy in the sixth inning and an RBI single by Freddie Freeman in the seventh.
Why the 4.09 Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story
Skubal arrived in Los Angeles with a 2.81 ERA, 122 strikeouts in 102.2 innings, and the distinction of being the only pitcher to win the Cy Young in back-to-back seasons in the American League. Two post-deadline starts are too small a sample to draw meaningful conclusions — the same blip has appeared in elite pitchers who went on to finish their seasons in dominant fashion.
The adjustment period after a mid-season trade is real: new teammates, new signs with a new catcher, a different bullpen behind you, a different city. What two starts can tell us is limited, but here’s what holds up: he isn’t getting dominated, he’s still racking up strikeouts (six in each outing), and in his first start he threw six solid innings without any offensive support. The arm is fine. The sample just isn’t big enough for a verdict.
The Dodgers were 71-48 through August 10, in the middle of a stretch where they had dropped 8 of their last 9 games before that win over Kansas City. Skubal is part of the solution, not the problem.
The Rotation They Built — and What’s at Stake
With Skubal in the fold, the Dodgers became the first team in MLB history to simultaneously have a back-to-back MVP — Shohei Ohtani — and a back-to-back Cy Young winner on the same roster in the same season. The rotation already featured Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. Adding Skubal wasn’t a move born out of need; it was a three-peat move.
There’s an added layer of pressure: Skubal hits free agency at the end of the season, which means the Dodgers have him for August, September — and the postseason, if they get there — with no guarantee he’s back in 2027. A 4.09 ERA through two starts doesn’t change that calculation. What matters is what he does in October, and there’s a full stretch of regular season left for him to get back to the 2.81 he brought from Detroit.
