Skubal isn't expected to throw more than 50 pitches in his season debut Tuesday against the White Sox, Evan Woodbery of MLive.com reports.
Skubal has been built up to roughly that number of pitches during his work at the Tigers' secondary site. While an approximately three-inning start isn't all that enticing for fantasy owners, Skubal has a chance to produce strong results on a per-inning basis if his 48.2 percent strikeout rate in nine starts at Double-A Erie last season is any indication. That's of course not a ton of experience in the upper minors, however, and he'll be skipping Triple-A entirely, so there's no guarantee he has immediate success at the big-league level. Detroit is expected to wait until Tuesday to formally add Skubal to its 40-man roster and 28-man active roster.