{"id":617150,"date":"2026-03-10T17:22:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T17:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/617150\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T17:22:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T17:22:17","slug":"aj-hinchs-immediate-response-to-tarik-skubal-leaving-wbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/617150\/","title":{"rendered":"AJ Hinch’s immediate response to Tarik Skubal leaving WBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tarik Skubal<\/a> made an appearance on the mound for Team USA in the 9-1 win over Great Britain on March 7. After playing just three innings, the Detroit Tigers star decided to leave<\/a> the World Baseball Classic<\/a> and prepare for the 2026 season. Manager AJ Hinch<\/a> shares his reaction to Skubal’s decision.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it was a tough decision for the 29-year-old ace. He seemed to want to keep playing, but given his contract situation and his desire to avoid a possible injury, Skubal just couldn’t continue in the World Baseball Classic. Hinch supported Skubal’s decision, claiming the Tigers would have been supportive<\/a> no matter what Skubal chose to do, according to Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re both supportive and happy that he’s coming back,\u201d said Hinch about Skubal. \u201cBut we would’ve supported whatever needed to happen to make him feel like he got a full experience in what he was after. He was in a really hard spot to try to please everybody in a world where criticism is easy. He should take no criticism because I think he did something incredible to be a part of it in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the three innings Tarik Skubal played<\/a> against Great Britain, he recorded five strikeouts while allowing two hits and one earned run. It was a solid outing outside of the lead-off home run Skubal allowed to Great Britain’s Nate Eaton. Luckily for Team USA, that was the only run Great Britain recorded in the contest.<\/p>\n

Tarik Skubal, who is coming off back-to-back Cy Young Awards, will now continue playing in spring training with the Tigers. He will be playing the 2026 campaign on a one-year, $32 million deal after winning his arbitration hearing with the organization. He is currently set to be an unrestricted free agent after this season.<\/p>\n

The Tigers’ star will aim for a possible third straight Cy Young. He looked great in 2025, recording what might be the best season of his career after posting a 2.21 ERA (career-best) and 0.891 WHIP (career-best) while totaling 241 strikeouts (career-best).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tarik Skubal made an appearance on the mound for Team USA in the 9-1 win over Great Britain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2386],"tags":[3193,5,147,53,2583,4,382,594,4820],"class_list":["post-617150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-detroit-tigers","tag-aj-hinch","tag-baseball","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-detroittigers","tag-mlb","tag-tarik-skubal","tag-tigers","tag-world-baseball-classic"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116206039435821235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}