Tarik Skubal showered with boos, taunts as he takes loss in Dodgers debut

CHICAGO –– Outside the ballpark, there was signage calling him overrated.Above the Friendly Confines, a prop plane towed a banner saying his new team is ruining baseball.When he took the mound for the first time, the better part of 40,000 fans booed him intensely.At various points during his debut start with the Dodgers, the stadium then mockingly chanted his name.If Tarik Skubal was curious about what kind of spotlight would be following him to the Dodgers, in the wake of the team’s blockbuster trade for him last Saturday, all he had to do was scan his surroundings at Wrigley Field in his club debut on Tuesday night.With his new team, comes a whole new level of polarizing expectation.In his first game with the Dodgers, Skubal largely pitched well in a 5-1 defeat.He began the night by freezing Pete Crow-Armstrong with a 99 mph sinker.

He retired five more in a row from there before Dansby Swanson ambushed a first-pitch fastball for a leadoff home run in the third.After escaping a jam later that inning, he mowed down the next eight he faced, collecting his sixth and final strikeout of the night on another 99 mph that blew away Crow-Armstrong in the sixth.And if not for Kyle Tucker whiffing on a fly ball at the wall two batters later, or Nico Hoerner trampolining an infield RBI single straight off the plate and some 20 feet in the air, his final line likely would’ve looked even better than his (still quality) six-inning, two-run mark.   The real story, though, was just how much the Wrigley Field crowd reviled his presence.For as much excitement bustled through the Dodgers’ home clubhouse pregame –– “It’s just not another game,” manager Dave Roberts said –– there was an equal level of disdain from the opposing fans.So it will go for Skubal and the Dodgers the rest of this year, after the club already labeled as baseball’s biggest villain added a reigning two-time Cy Young Award-winning pitcher to its rotation.“I don’t really sympathiz...