Tarik Skubal is a Dodger.
The five words every baseball soul outside of Los Angeles dreaded hearing.
The Dodgers are going to three-peat.
The six words that every baseball soul everywhere must now acknowledge.
It’s over. The chase for baseball’s best pitcher, the hunt by baseball’s best team, the pennant race, the World Series, all of it.
It’s over. The Dodgers just stole it all again, three months early but right on time, their third consecutive championship cemented when they traded for the Detroit Tigers’ Tarik Skubal, the two-time defending Cy Young Award winner and quite simply the best pitcher in baseball.
Everybody wanted him. The Dodgers were the only team with enough assets to get him. Of course they were. They always are.
And in return, they will surely win a third consecutive championship against a withering and overmatched group of pretenders that could only add Skubal in their dreams.
He cost top prospects Zyhir Hope, River Ryan and Brady Smith. So? The Dodgers have tons of them.
He could be a free agent this winter and may cost $400 million to retain. So? The Dodgers have that much in their couch cushions.
The Dodgers’ injury-scarred rotation needed a stud starting pitcher like Skubal and, as this column noted last month, there was no excuse for the baseball’s wealthiest and smartest team not to grab him.
So they grabbed him. Of course they did. They are rushing full bore toward that three-peat and, to the delight of the most appreciative fans in baseball, nothing is going to get in their way.
The rest of baseball will hate them for this. They don’t care. Critics will say this is yet another example of how they are ruining the game. They could give a rip.
A move like this — the insanely rich getting insanely richer — could be cited this winter as a reason for the game shutting down over a labor dispute. Not their problem.
With a sore Shohei Ohtani looking increasingly doubtful for a meaningful October on the mound, with Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow still sidelined with injuries, Skubal can slide into the No. 2-spot in a rotation that, if everyone gets healthy, could wind up being the best in baseball history.
Of course, in the immortal words of Kobe Bryant, the job is not finished.
There are still questions, even for a team that has all the answers.
Skubal is a tremendous postseason pitcher, with a 2.04 ERA in six starts, but will his surgically repaired left elbow survive through his third postseason?
After pushing 200 innings the last two seasons, he underwent a newfangled minimally invasive procedure on May 6 to remove a loose body from his elbow. Recovery time for a similar surgery performed the old-fashioned way is two to three months, but he was back on the mound in a game just a month later.
Will this new operation hold up? Time will tell, but the Dodgers will be holding their breath.
After Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Skubal, the Dodgers have another potentially big question. What do they do about Ohtani?
He’s got a balky knee, and now a painful biceps, and the Dodgers have kept him off the mound for a moment, but what happens in October?
By acquiring Skubal, the Dodgers can afford to pull Ohtani out of the rotation altogether and allow him to focus on hitting, which has taken a bit of a hit with the pitching issues. But would he accept such a move, which might feel like a demotion? Ohtani has always put winning first, but he also began the season openly acknowledging his quest for a Cy Young award. So there’s that.
Rounding out the rotation, the Dodgers will still need some good fortune to round out the rotation.
They say Snell and Glasnow are both on the verge of returning from what has essentially been season-long injuries. But they’ll both be 33 in October, so only believe what you see.
Roki Sasaki has been tremendous since the All-Star break — that new glove has been a giant success — but he’s still never started a postseason game. And for all his surprise greatness this summer, Justin Wrobleski has also yet to start a postseason game.
It all could get interesting. But it shouldn’t be suspenseful.
Skubal solves all mysteries. Skubal ends all arguments. Skubal saves the summer.
The Dodgers are the most championship-driven and fan-devoted team in all of sports. They will do whatever it takes, however it takes, whenever it takes, to win.
Five words that unequivocally prove it.
Tarik Skubal is a Dodger.
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