{"id":624166,"date":"2026-03-14T22:53:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T22:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/624166\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T22:53:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T22:53:02","slug":"fans-blast-tarik-skubal-for-leaving-team-usa-after-spring-training-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/624166\/","title":{"rendered":"Fans blast Tarik Skubal for leaving Team USA after spring training start"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tarik Skubal<\/a> left Team USA<\/a> in the World Baseball Classic<\/a> after his pool play appearance to go back and continue preparing for the 2026 MLB season with the Detroit Tigers<\/a>. That decision has been met with plenty of criticism, and the outside noise grew louder on Saturday after his performance in spring training.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old left-hander took the mound for the Tigers and put on a dominant performance<\/a>. He ended the day with seven strikeouts while allowing just three hits and one earned run through 4.2 innings pitched. He also generated 10 whiffs on 61 pitches in the Tigers’ 6-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.<\/p>\n

After watching Tarik Skubal throw 61 pitches in a spring training game, MLB fans wondered why he couldn’t have thrown that many pitches in an outing with Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. They hopped on social media and called out Skubal for his decision to leave the WBC early.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one cares should [have done] this for USA,\u201d said one fan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another user pondered<\/a>, \u201cIf only this outing could\u2019ve been used somewhere else\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI speak for everyone when I say we will be hate-watching [Skubal] all season,\u201d claimed another individual<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This person asked<\/a>, \u201cSo this was more important in a meaningless game for the Tigers than playing for his country? Got it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBro was afraid of facing real competition,\u201d said this fan<\/a> with a crying emoji.<\/p>\n

One user stated<\/a>, \u201cThe season is 100+ games, absolutely pathetic that he couldn\u2019t stay 1 more week doing the exact same thing (pitching), with Team USA.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he couldn’t have done this for Team USA, why exactly?\u201d asked another individual<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tarik Skubal stated before<\/a> the World Baseball Classic began that he was only planning on playing in one game with Team USA before heading back to spring training. The back-to-back AL Cy Young Award winner also claimed that if the WBC were played in the middle of the MLB season, then he would feel more inclined to play throughout the entire tournament.<\/p>\n

Skubal also claims that most serious injuries for pitchers take place in spring, and didn’t want to put extra pressure on his arm in a playoff environment in the WBC before the 2026 campaign began.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tarik Skubal left Team USA in the World Baseball Classic after his pool play appearance to go back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624167,"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-624166","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\/116229988187122698","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624166","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=624166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}