Primetime Playoff Pitching Duel Looms in Game 5—Does Edge Belong to Skubal or Kirby?
Two high-end hurlers will climb the hill on Friday night, each with his team’s season upon his shoulders. Both are some of the most ferocious starters on their team. Both have dealt smoke in the playoffs. Both have stared down elimination in years past. But neither has won with their team on the brink.
Looking at the regular season performances, Tarik Skubal of the Tigers appears the favorite. During the past two years, Skubal has been the best pitcher in the American League, with a combined 2.30 ERA, 2.47 FIP, 0.906 WHIP, and 6.90 strikeout-to-walk ratio over the past two years—and with a remarkable consistency, too. George Kirby of the Mariners, meanwhile, has struggled over much of 2025 due in part to injury early in the year, with a 4.21 ERA, 3.37 FIP, 1.190 WHIP, and 4.72 strikeout-to-walk ratio. But four lockdown starts in September and a 2024 season where Kirby led the world in strikeout-to-walk ratio serve as reminders that Seattle’s starter is no slouch in this winner-take-all outing.
The playoffs, however, are a different beast. Both pitchers have stepped onto the rubber quite a bit in October, and their postseason stats tell an interesting story ahead of Game 5.
Tarik Skubal: five starts, 33 2/3 innings, 2.14 ERA, 2.47 FIP, 0.802 WHIP, 7.17 Strikeout-to-walk ratio, 0.8 home runs given up per nine innings.
As good as Skubal’s Cy Young-level performances have been over the past two years, his postseason statistics are even better. Like a true ace, he has risen to the challenge nearly every outing in October, powering past the once-mighty Astros in the 2024 Wild Card Series, blanking the Guardians in Game 1 of the following ALDS, obliterating Cleveland in the first game of 2025’s Wild Card Series, and shutting down eight of nine Mariners in the second game of the current ALDS. His recent outing against Cleveland was a showcase of elite pitching few could hope to match, with 14 strikeouts and three walks over 7 ⅓ innings of one-run ball. The first two games of his 2024 playoffs, meanwhile, saw 13 combined shutout innings for the Tigers.
But in the most important contest of the five, Skubal slipped. Game 5 of the ALDS, played on the road in Cleveland, opened like the rest: the few early hits the Guardians could muster were contained as neither team scored in the first four innings. Detroit even worked a one-run lead in the top of the fifth, more than enough to take control of a game in which Skubal dominated. In the bottom of that inning, however, it all went wrong for Detroit. The Guardians got the bases loaded with just one out before Skubal quickly let the tying run in, hitting José Ramírez on an 0-1 pitch. Just one more mistake was all it took to end the Tigers’ season, as Lane Thomas walloped a 1-1 meatball over Progressive Field’s high wall in left center field for a go-ahead grand slam.
There was nothing Skubal could do except look to 2025. A year later, he has a chance at redemption against a Mariners team that has bizarrely had his number, winning all three times Skubal has taken the mound against them. No team in history has ever won four times in a season against the Tiger ace, a statistic that Detroit very much has a strong chance of keeping intact.
George Kirby: three games, two starts, 13 innings, 1.38 ERA, 2.89 FIP, 1.077 WHIP, 7.00 strikeout-to-walk ratio, 0.7 home runs given up per nine innings.
Although Kirby’s playoff debut came two years before Skubal’s, the home starter has seen less postseason action than his visiting counterpart. His first two appearances came in his rookie season, beginning with a save to close out Seattle’s comeback victory over the Blue Jays in Game 2 of the 2022 Wild Card Series and continuing with a seven-inning shutout start against the eventual World Series champion Astros in Game 3 of the ALDS. That latter start, coming with the M’s facing elimination against one of the highest-powered offenses in baseball, still stands as perhaps the most singularly impressive outing of his career. Had Seattle scored a single run, Kirby would have ended up with the win—but neither side scored for 17 innings in the Astros’ 18-frame win.
Kirby’s Game 1 start in 2025 was a little less impressive, however. He was lights-out for four innings of the game, keeping Detroit off the board with a mix of two-seamers up and sliders lower. His curveball, however, was seemingly out of commission after a couple early hits on the pitch, and by the fifth inning, high-ball hunter Kerry Carpenter expected that his two-strike delivery would be up in the zone. Carpenter’s two-run shot on that very pitch allowed the Tigers to force an extra-innings game where a Carlos Vargas wild pitch ended up the final difference. Had Kirby kept low against Carpenter—and everything else remained the same (a big if, given the butterfly effect)—the Mariners would have gone on to sweep the Tigers, and all the Friday festivities would be about an upcoming series against the Blue Jays.
Any trip to Toronto now will require Kirby to go toe-to-toe with the best pitcher in the league. His history of playoff success offers a hopeful indicator that he can indeed shut down the Tigers, but he has yet to have a blowup outing in October. Does that mean he is due? The Mariners hope not. Of course, his lack of any major slippage has no actual effect on whether he will struggle on Friday night, but the mental stress of defending a strong run could induce such issues.
The answer will come on Friday night with the eyes of the world upon him.