Help Me Understand Why Skubal Got Taken Out?

Curt Van Hekken

Certainly A.J. Hinch knows infinitely more about baseball than I do. 

So I am seriously searching for understanding as to why Hinch took Tarik Skubal out of the game after the sixth inning in last night's deciding game 5 of the ALDS.

The Detroit Tigers lost to the Seattle Mariners on a Jorge Polanco a walk-off single that scored J.P. Crawford in the bottom of the 15th inning. 

Nine innings earlier Tigers manager, removed starting pitcher, Tarik Skubal, after just the first 6 innings.  Skubal had basically been unhittable up to that point.  He had given up just one run on a sacrifice fly in the 2nd inning.  He then pitched 4 scoreless innings in which the Mariners could hardly even get the bat on the ball.  In his 6 innings, Skubal gave up just 2 hits and had 13 strikeouts.  He was unbelievable.  His fastball was over 100 mph in the 6th inning.  He appeared to be at a peak performance, yet Hinch decided to pull him with a slim 2-1 lead.  In the very next inning, Tigers reliever, Kyle Finnegan, have up a run which tied the game up at 2.  It's hard not to think that if Skubal had at least came out and pitched the 7th, that the Tigers would not have gone on to win the game 2-1 in 9 innings.  It's really hard not to think that.

So I am legitimately trying to understand why the decison was made to pull Skubal.  I really am.  Please comment if you know the reasoning.

He was under 100 pitches, and sure, in most situations, in this day and age, he probably reached his pitch count.  But this is the playoffs.  This is a must win situation.  My thought process goes to doing whatever it takes to win in this situation.  I really think if Skubal goes one more inning, the Tigers win that game.  

I was watching the game with a good friend of mine, and he compared taking Skubal out to taking Michael Jordan out of a must win game.  I agreed and expanded that thought to comparing taking Skubal out in that moment, to taking Jordan out in a must win game when he has 50 points and had hit 8 straight shots after just 42 mintues.

I just hope this decision doesn't influence Skubal to leave after his contract expires after next season.  Go Tigers!