On Thursday, Tarik Skubal disclosed to the “Foul Territory” podcast that he instructed catcher Carson Kelly to purposefully allow a foul ball to drop during teammate Jack Flaherty’s spectacular performance on Tuesday against the St. Louis Cardinals.
The southpaw for the Detroit Tigers clarified that, during Flaherty’s record-tying string of seven consecutive strikeouts to start Tuesday’s game, he asked Kelly to intentionally let the ball to fall into the dugout.
During the game, Flaherty (who was with the Cardinals for more than six seasons from 2017 to 23) recorded a career-high 14 strikeouts.
There was one instance where a foul ball found its way into our dugout. Carson Kelly attempted to catch it over the fence, but I told him to drop it. Drop it. Before someone plays it, I want to know how many strikeouts this guy can record in a row. And after about two pitches, he struck him out on the eighth one, according to Skubal. “As I watch that, I wonder, ‘What is going on?'” It’s the most dominance I’ve seen. Then I start to wonder, “Okay, is he going to punch out 20?”
