![\"Image\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/7fb03d531c83d2e41880f1ac9203878f.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nTarik Skubal delivered one of his sharpest outings of the spring, Matt Vierling drove in three runs with a pair of doubles and Parker Meadows added a stolen base and run scored as the Detroit Tigers handled the Toronto Blue Jays 6-1 Saturday afternoon at TD Ballpark.<\/p>\n
Skubal turned in 4 2\/3 innings of one-run ball, finishing with seven strikeouts against three hits and two walks across 61 pitches. The left-hander leaned on his four-seam fastball, throwing it 38 percent of the time at an average velocity of 97.3 mph, while mixing in his slider, sinker, changeup and curveball to keep Toronto off-balance through the middle innings.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Image<\/p>\n
He struck out seven and induced weak contact throughout, posting a 34 percent combined called strike and whiff rate on the night. His only blemish came in the fifth inning when Daulton Varsho pulled a solo home run to center field, cutting the deficit to 2-1.<\/p>\n
Through four innings, Skubal was dominant. He retired the Blue Jays in order in the first on a groundout and two strikeouts, then worked around a Leo Jim\u00e9nez error in the second without allowing a run. In the third, he induced a Riley Tirotta single but erased the threat with a double play off the bat of George Springer. The Blue Jays went down 1-2-3 in the fourth on three grounders and flyouts.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Max Scherzer held Detroit scoreless through four innings before running into trouble in the fifth. After Jace Jung and Trei Cruz made the first two outs, Parker Meadows worked a walk and Kevin McGonigle followed with another. That brought up Vierling, who lined a sharp double to left field to score Meadows and give Detroit a 1-0 lead. Wenceel P\u00e9rez followed with a ground single through the left side, plating McGonigle and pushing the advantage to 2-0.<\/p>\n
Vierling came up again in the seventh with Gage Workman on base after entering as a pinch-runner. He delivered again, doubling sharply to center off Louis Varland to push the lead to 3-1. On the day, Vierling finished 2-for-4 with two doubles and three RBIs, providing Detroit’s most productive offensive performance in the contest.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Meadows was a catalyst at the top of the order. The center fielder reached twice \u2014 on a fifth-inning walk and a third-inning single \u2014 and stole second base in the third. He scored once and moved the lineup over in situations that allowed Vierling to inflict damage.<\/p>\n
The Tigers added two more in the eighth on back-to-back singles from Max Anderson and John Peck, the latter plating Anderson after he had doubled to center. Andrew Jenkins followed with another RBI single before a double play ended the inning.<\/p>\n
Eduardo Valencia, Eduardo Valencia and Max Anderson each added run-scoring hits in the ninth, with Anderson’s single to left field scoring Zach MacDonald to close out the 6-1 final.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Jack Little, Burch Smith, Tanner Rainey and Sean Guenther each contributed in relief behind Skubal, with Rainey and Guenther combining to limit Toronto to a walk and single in the eighth and ninth.<\/p>\n
Follow me on “X” @rogcastbaseball<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tarik Skubal delivered one of his sharpest outings of the spring, Matt Vierling drove in three runs with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2378],"tags":[5,377,2554,67373,8636,854,53,514,311,4956,23677,4140,22104,6438,1387,21849,381,4,1402,8533,2058,382,1414,282,70,2553,60894],"class_list":{"0":"post-624541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-blue-jays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-blue-jays","10":"tag-bluejays","11":"tag-burch-smith","12":"tag-center-field","13":"tag-daulton-varsho","14":"tag-detroit-tigers","15":"tag-gage-workman","16":"tag-george-springer","17":"tag-jace-jung","18":"tag-jack-little","19":"tag-kevin-mcgonigle","20":"tag-leo-jimenez","21":"tag-louis-varland","22":"tag-matt-vierling","23":"tag-max-anderson","24":"tag-max-scherzer","25":"tag-mlb","26":"tag-parker-meadows","27":"tag-sean-guenther","28":"tag-tanner-rainey","29":"tag-tarik-skubal","30":"tag-the-blue-jays","31":"tag-toronto","32":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","33":"tag-torontobluejays","34":"tag-trei-cruz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116231394866032144","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624541","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=624541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}