Tarik Skubal has strong outing as Tigers top Red Sox, 4-1

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on Apr 18, 2026

Published in Baseball

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BOSTON — Tarik Skubal has reached a level of dominance where any smudge on his line score draws a gasp.

Given an early four-run cushion Saturday, Skubal, despite one little hiccup, made it stand up and the Tigers evened the series with a 4-1 victory over the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park.

Skubal, the reigning two-time Cy Young winner, blew through the first four innings, allowing only a walk with eight strikeouts. But things got dicey for a minute in the fifth. Wilyer Abreu led off with a single and Ceddanne Rafaela lobbed one off the Green Monster for a double.

When Skubal walked Caleb Durbin to load the bases, the chilled crowd (46 degrees in the fifth inning) got on their feet.

They sat down quickly.

Skubal induced a 4-3 double-play from Connor Wong, which plated a run but killed the rally.

He pitched out of a first-and-third jam in the sixth, too, and when they added it up, Skubal produced another quality start, six innings, four hits, one run and a season-high 10 strikeouts.

He got 19 whiffs on 42 swings, 12 whiffs on 15 swings at his change-up.

The Tigers worked 35 pitches from Red Sox starter Brayan Bello in the first inning. It only produced one run, on a bases loaded walk to Kerry Carpenter, but it set the tone for a short outing, which they hastened with a three-run fourth.

Carpenter ignited that with his fourth home run of the season. He launched a change-up into the Tigers’ bullpen in right field.

After a walk to Wenceel Perez and a double by Javier Baez, Jake Rogers hit a sacrifice fly to center and Kevin McGonigle lashed an RBI single, his second of the day.

McGonigle, who has reached base in an American League-best 17 straight starts, hit three bullets off Bello — a 108.8-mph single, a 101.8-mph fly out and a 100.3-mph single.

Lefty Tyler Holton, who has allowed just one run in 9 1/3 innings this season, got six straight outs in relief of Skubal, getting the game to the ninth inning and Kenley Jansen.

Jansen, the closer for the Red Sox in 2023 and 2024, pitched a scoreless ninth for his fifth save as a Tiger and 481st of his career, the most among active pitchers, third-most all time.