PHOENIX — In Dave Roberts’ 11 seasons as manager, the Dodgers have acquired a number of marquee players at the trade deadline.
Yu Darvish. Manny Machado. Max Scherzer.
Ordinary summer nights became events when each made their home debuts for the Dodgers, and Roberts expects that to also be the case for the team’s latest big-ticket midseason reinforcement, Tarik Skubal.
The two-time Cy Young Award winner is scheduled to pitch on Monday at Dodger Stadium in the opening game of a three-game series against the Kansas City Royals.
“It’s gonna be fun,” Roberts said. “It’s gonna be a lot of fun. It’s gonna be 50,000 [fans] like it always is.
“We’ve made some deadline acquisitions with some top-end guys, but this guy is something special.”
Skubal, who started his first game for the Dodgers on Tuesday in Chicago, said he was looking forward to the assignment.
“No doubt, no doubt,” Skubal said. “Home start, it’ll be a ton of fun. I’m excited to get going.”
The Dodgers’ rotation is starting to round into shape. Skubal will be followed on Tuesday by another two-time Cy Young Award winner in Blake Snell, who is scheduled to start his first major league game in three months.
Skubal and Snell will be major additions to an injury-ravaged rotation that is still missing Tyler Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani. The state of the pitching staff has played a role in the season-long six-game losing streak the Dodgers carried into their three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“Now when you got Blake back, you got Tarik here, you feel like you have the pieces with the starting pitchers to go on a run,” Roberts said. “But you also gotta play good defense behind them. You gotta score runs. But it does feel like every night we should have a good chance to win a ballgame.”
Skubal has pitched only once at Dodger Stadium.
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The Dodgers beat him last year in their home opener, scoring four runs in five innings against him in a 5-4 victory over the Detroit Tigers.
Skubal went on to win his second consecutive Cy Young Award.
Acquired on Aug. 1 for three prospects, Skubal pitched well in his first game for the Dodgers but was charged with the loss in a 5-1 defeat against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.
Skubal gave up two runs in six innings. The fastball was a tick faster than it’s been for most of this season, its average velocity of 97 in the neighborhood where it was last year.
Skubal underwent a procedure earlier this year to remove loose bodies from his respective pitching elbow and has sharpened his form over his last few starts.
Now, it will be Snell’s turn to return from a similar operation.
Dr. Neal ElAttrache’s use of a groundbreaking medical device significantly reduced Skubal’s and Snell’s recovery times. With a traditional arthroscope, the timeline to recover from such a procedure is about 14 weeks.
Because of ElAttrache’s use of the minimally invasive NanoNeedle Scope 2.0, Skubal was able to resume throwing in a week. The Dodgers wanted to take advantage of their pitching depth and allow Snell to take his time coming back, and even then, he was playing catch just 2 ½ weeks after the operation.
Snell said he pitched through shoulder pain in the playoffs last year. The Dodgers slow-played him in spring training, only to have to shut him down after only one game this season, a three-inning start against the Atlanta Braves on May 9 in which he gave up five runs.
Snell started a minor-league rehabilitation assignment on July 18. He gradually built up his arm strength over four games with Triple-A Oklahoma City. Snell’s last minor-league start was his least effective, but his pitch count reached 75.
The left-hander also had an injury-plagued season last year, when he was shut down after two starts with a shoulder problem. He missed four months but pitched in the last two months of the regular season.
But he played a major role in the postseason, winning his first three starts and contributing 1 ⅓ innings of relief in the Dodgers’ win over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 7 of the World Series.
