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Tarik Skubal’s injury return timeline is under scrutiny after an orthopedic surgeon warned the Detroit Tigers ace could miss the season following elbow surgery.

Tarik Skubal’s injury return timeline may now stretch beyond the season, as a leading orthopedic surgeon warns the Tigers ace may face a long recovery.

The American League Cy Young Award winner will undergo arthroscopic surgery to remove loose bodies from his left elbow, the Detroit Tigers announced Monday after Skubal experienced discomfort during a throwing session Sunday. Some medical projections place recovery as long as six months, pushing any return into October, past the end of the 2026 campaign.

Tarik Skubal Surgery: What Doctors Say

The broadest assessment came from Dr. Shahryar Ahmadi, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in shoulder and elbow surgery at MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center. Speaking with Detroit Free Press reporter Evan Petzold, Ahmadi outlined a spectrum running from six weeks to six months depending on what Skubal’s treating physicians find inside the joint. The Tigers have not given a public estimate of the severity of Skubal’s elbow issue.

“The minor one can be six to 12 weeks, and the major one can be three to six months,” Ahmadi said, according to Petzold’s reporting.

What makes Skubal’s timeline especially volatile is how much hinges on what surgeons actually find inside the elbow. A relatively clean procedure could put him back on a late-summer track, but a more complicated cleanup involving multiple loose bodies or underlying joint damage can quickly extend recovery toward the six-month range that would sideline him for the rest of the season.

“If there is not much arthritis in the joint, the player doesn’t have stiffness, there is no instability, and it’s just a couple of small loose bodies, the recovery is very, very quick,” Ahmadi told the Free Press. “If there is extensive arthritis, lots of loose bodies, instability, stiffness, that makes it more complicated with a longer recovery.”

Another orthopedic specialist offered a more tightly defined outlook in an interview with reporter Tony Paul of the Detroit News. Dr. Kevin Farmer, chief of sports medicine at the University of Florida’s College of Medicine, told Paul that Skubal could realistically return before the end of August under a best-case scenario, with a slower recovery pushing that to early September. Farmer projected roughly six to eight weeks of initial physical therapy followed by another six to eight weeks of throwing and strength buildup, according to the Detroit News report.

Skubal made no effort to soften his reaction Monday.

“It [stinks]. I pride myself on taking the ball every fifth day and giving our team a chance to win,” he said at a news conference, as quoted by MLB.com‘s Jason Beck.

Skubal’s Free Agency Outlook Takes a Hit

The injury is not the first for Skubal’s elbow. The 29-year-old left-hander underwent Tommy John surgery in college a decade ago and missed much of the 2022 season with the Tigers due to surgery on his flexor tendon. That history, combined with the new injury, is likely to affect his free-agent value significantly.

Coming off a Cy Young Award, Skubal had been widely projected to eclipse the existing pitcher free-agent record for a massive contract, currently held by the 12-year, $325 million deal the Los Angeles Dodgers gave Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Estimates of Skubal’s upcoming contract have generally run between $400 million and $500 million, according to the Detroit News report. But that was before his latest elbow ailment.

Detroit entered Tuesday tied with the Cleveland Guardians atop the AL Central at 18-18.

“You can’t deny it’s a big blow, but we’re not canceling the season. We’re going to play the games,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said, as quoted by Front Office Sports reporter Eric Fisher, who added that any team looking to sign the Cy Young winner as a free agent “will be closely watching Skubal’s health and effectiveness on the mound when he returns before tendering anything close to an unprecedented contract offer.”

For now, the Tigers are left waiting on doctors’ findings that will determine whether Skubal can return in time to impact the 2026 race, or whether Detroit must navigate the rest of the season without its ace. With multiple injury timelines still in play, his recovery will remain one of the most closely watched situations in baseball.