Tarik Skubal earned his major league-leading 15th win as the Detroit Tigers defeated the Chicago White Sox 13-4 on Saturday night, handing the White Sox their 99th loss of the season.
Matt Vierling, Colt Keith, and Zach McKinstry all hit home runs for Detroit, which won three out of its last four games. Keith and Jake Rogers each had three RBIs, and Vierling scored three times.
Skubal (15-4) struck out eight batters in five innings, giving up three runs and eight hits.
“Tarik has been incredible the entire year,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “It shows he’s human a little bit and had a couple things not go his way. We’ll take that outing, especially when we put up the offense that we did.”
Skubal, who also leads the majors with a 2.58 ERA, had trouble gripping the ball. The temperature was 86 degrees at first pitch on a humid night.
“I’ve thrown in hotter games and more humid games. I don’t know what was going on with the balls today, but I wasn’t a fan of them,” Skubal said.
“I’ve never thrown out that many balls before. I don’t really want that to be a story either. That’s not an excuse or anything. It happens. You’ve got to learn to pitch around some things and deal with it because it’s not going to be the last time that happens.”
Corey Julks had three hits for the White Sox, who are getting closer to setting a franchise record for most losses in a season. Chicago had a club-worst 106 losses in 1970.
The record for most losses in a season belongs to the Cleveland Spiders, who went 20-134 in 1899. The 1962 New York Mets hold the modern record with 120 losses.
“I don’t think we try to focus on that,” Julks said about approaching 100 losses. “We just go day by day. As we’ve been playing, I think everything is starting to come along a little more, but you’ve got to show up ready to play each day and play hard.”
Ky Bush (0-3) gave up five runs and eight hits in three innings for Chicago (31-99) in his fourth career start.
The White Sox are now 3-10 under interim manager Grady Sizemore, who took over from the fired Pedro Grifol on August 8.
