Tarik Skubal throws 'really positive' bullpen 2 weeks after surgery

Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal didn't call his morning workout a bullpen session. "I would say more of a start, a one-inning start," he said. Skubal threw 35 pitches in the Comerica Park bullpen on Thursday, May 21, in what would have been a start day, mixing in his full arsenal of pitches and building up his stamina just 15 days after undergoing arthroscopic surgery to remove a loose body in his pitching elbow.

The lefty ace said he felt "healthy" after the session, celebrating at the end when he reached his velocity target. "You gotta prove to your body that it's okay to throw hard again, especially it being 15 days from surgery," he said. "There's a velocity number I was trying to hit, and I hit it ...

it comes out a little bit slower than a game, but it's relatively close. " The surgery Skubal underwent, performed by renowned Dr. Neal ElAttrache, was a relatively new procedure that used a nano-needle to remove a bone chip – less invasive than a typical arthroscopic surgery.

That has Skubal on a much quicker rehab timeline than many analysts expected before the surgery. Skubal is crossing off his rehab checklist much faster than he has in the past – especially for a flexor tendon surgery in 2022 that knocked him out for much of the 2023 season. "The other ones, it's six months off [with] no throw, and that sucks," Skubal said.