{"id":619034,"date":"2026-03-11T20:01:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T20:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/619034\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T20:01:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T20:01:20","slug":"tarik-skubal-sounds-off-amid-criticism-for-leaving-team-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/619034\/","title":{"rendered":"Tarik Skubal sounds off amid criticism for leaving Team USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Team USA<\/a> in the middle of the World Baseball Classic<\/a>, Detroit Tigers<\/a> pitcher Tarik Skubal left the team following their game<\/a> against Great Britain. Though the team understood his decision, the outsiders were not the happiest with him only made one start for the team.<\/p>\n

Skubal has heard about the criticism<\/a>, and he opened up<\/a> about leaving the team early in their run.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just not fair,\u201d Skubal said via Jayson Stark of The Athletic. \u201cBut that\u2019s part of the business. It\u2019s part of the game. If they know me, though, and they know me on a personal level, and they know what my peers think of me, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair to say those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skubal was then asked if the criticism made his decision to leave made it harder.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, because a lot of those opinions and narratives are created by people that don\u2019t know me, you know?\u201d Skubal said. \u201cAnd I think if you ask anyone in the clubhouse, my peers \u2026 you ask any peers in that clubhouse, on Team USA, they\u2019ve all been pretty vocally supportive of what I\u2019ve got going on.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they also made a big impact on (this decision). I talked to them all personally. I took a lot of those guys aside, and (they) helped me make a decision. So the narrative that\u2019s created outside \u2026 I can\u2019t control it. I want to control what I can control. \u2026 And I can\u2019t control the narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skubal is set to be a free agent after this season and is expected to secure a large contract. They may have had a little to do with his decision, but it also seems as if he wanted to do what was best for the Tigers as well.<\/p>\n

Though he may not feel the best about his decision, as long as his Team USA teammates understand his situation, that’s all that should matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Team USA in the middle of the World Baseball Classic, Detroit Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal left the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2386],"tags":[5,147,53,2583,4,382,4819,594,4820],"class_list":{"0":"post-619034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-tigers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-tigers","11":"tag-detroittigers","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-tarik-skubal","14":"tag-team-usa","15":"tag-tigers","16":"tag-world-baseball-classic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116212326944496076","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619034","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=619034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}