The Seattle Mariners will try to do the unthinkable on Friday night.

With their season on the line in front of what is expected to be a raucous home crowd at T-Mobile Park during a decisive American League Division Series Game 5 showdown against the Detroit Tigers, the M’s are attempting to beat reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal for the fourth time this season to punch their ticket to the AL Championship Series.

Drayer: Seattle Mariners confident in their resiliency ahead of Game 5

The Tigers have lost just 11 of Skubal’s 33 starts this year, which includes the playoffs, and three of those losses came against the Mariners, most recently Sunday’s Game 2 win in Seattle.

How can Seattle accomplish a feat for the fourth time this year that most teams struggle to do once? Mariners analyst and former MLB pitcher Ryan Rowland-Smith shared his keys to beating Skubal once more with Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy on Thursday.

Two keys to beating Skubal

The first of Rowland-Smith’s keys for the M’s against Skubal is trying to wait him out in an effort to get him to throw as many pitches as possible early on, which will hopefully lead to a few mistakes.

In order to wait Skubal out, Rowland-Smith said Seattle needs to eliminate the inner half of the plate and lay off the left-hander’s devastating changeup below the zone.

Skubal has been nearly untouchable when he’s locating in the lower and upper quadrants of the inside third of the strike zone against right-handed batters. They haven’t hit a home run off any pitches in those quadrants this season, per Baseball Savant. And when right-handed batters chase off the plate inside, they’re hitting well under .100.

Who’s to say the Mariners can’t beat Tarik Skubal again?

As for the changeup, Skubal racked up an impressive 46.8% whiff rate on the pitch this season while holding batters to a .145 average and just 13 extra-base hits in 265 plate appearances that ended with the pitch.

“If you go back and watch that (Game 2) in the first three innings, he was just dotting up and in, up and in, up and in,” Rowland-Smith said. “And then all of a sudden there’s just a couple windows of opportunity there where he couldn’t get that pitch and there was a little bit of pitch recognition with that changeup, leaving that pitch (alone) below the strike zone because you’re not going to do anything lower half of the plate against Tarik Skubal.

“In a situation like that, you can get to a place where you can get him to a 2-1 count, then he gets a little frustrated and then he leaks something out over the middle of the plate. That’s how you’re gonna have to beat him.”

Rowland-Smith’s other key to beating Skubal doesn’t fall on the Mariners’ hitters. It falls on their pitchers, who need to be able to go toe-to-toe with the reigning AL Cy Young winner to keep their club in the game.

Seattle has yet to announce its Game 5 starter.

“Whoever (the starter is), you literally just have to match him inning by inning, pitch to pitch,” Rowland-Smith said. “And that’s exactly what Luis Castillo and (the pitching staff) were able to do (in Game 2). So you have to treat this … as a situation where it’s all hands on deck, you are pitching the ninth inning from the first inning onward, and you gotta match Tarik Skubal.”

Listen to Bump and Stacy weekdays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app. 

More Seattle Mariners ALDS coverage

• Start time set for Mariners’ decisive ALDS Game 5 vs. Tigers
• What to know as Seattle Mariners head to deciding Game 5 in ALDS
• What stands out to MLB Network’s Jon Morosi as ALDS goes to a Game 5
• Three observations from Mariners’ Game 4 loss to Tigers
• Three things FOX analyst Adam Wainwright said about the Mariners