Tarik Skubal Trade to Dodgers Addressed by Tigers' A.J. Hinch, 'Part of the Business'

Sometimes baseball teams need to move on from players and continue approaching the day-to-day challenges of the lengthy regular season.

Even if that player is arguably the best pitcher in baseball.

"Baseball has a funny way of challenging you to deal with change," Detroit Tigers manager A.J. Hinch told reporters Sunday after his team traded Tarik Skubal to the Los Angeles Dodgers. "Sometimes that's difficult, sometimes it's part of the game and part of the business. These guys are callous to some of the emotions that come with it."

Detroit traded Skubal to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday in exchange for outfielder Zyhir Hope and right-handed pitchers River Ryan and Brady Smith.

While Skubal is a dominant pitcher and the back-to-back American League Cy Young award winner, he is also scheduled for free agency during the upcoming offseason. Detroit is also five games under .500 and not a realistic World Series contender, so moving him for a return package before he potentially leaves in free agency made some sense.

"It's OK for it to impact you emotionally and it's OK for you to be affected by it," Hinch said. "Until the game starts. And then you have that responsibility as a big-leaguer to go out and compete."

That Skubal was traded isn't exactly surprising given the Tigers' situation, but it was still a head-turning development to see him go to the Dodgers. After all, Los Angeles is the back-to-back World Series champion and already has Yoshinobu Yamamoto and, when healthy, Shohei Ohtani in the rotation.

The Dodgers once again look poised to challenge for another championship with a frightening one-two punch atop the rotation in Yamamoto and Skubal.

As for the Tigers, they have to continue playing out the string on the season without their ace.

"The team's handled it really well," first baseman Spencer Torkelson said. "Leading up to the trade, I thought we blocked out the noise amazing. Even in the sixth inning when everyone's screaming at us from the stands that we traded our best pitcher, I think we kept our focus and kept the main thing the main thing. I think as a team we still believe in ourselves and we know that we're definitely not out of it."

Detroit is 2.5 games back of the final American League wild-card spot and will have to jump four other teams just to get into position.

That means it will have to play well down a stretch run that includes a three-game series against Skubal and the Dodgers from Aug. 28-30.