The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox.Good morning. Godspeed to the Los Angeles Angels today. Inside:
While You Were Sleeping: Blockbuster, doneThis MLB season’s most anticipated deal is agreed, a league source told The Athletic last night, with Tarik Skubal headed in a predictable southwesterly direction.The Tigers-Dodgers trade means the back-to-back AL Cy Young winner is joining the back-to-back World Series champs … and you’re about to hear a lot about the competitive balance in baseball.The Tigers get three prospects in return, a relatively modest haul they basically had to accept because Skubal is a free agent after the season.The Dodgers? They didn’t need Skubal like other teams needed Skubal, but even for them he’s a level-upper: a lefty whose five pitches include an upper-90s fastball and an otherworldly changeup.See our writers’ trade grades here.This was the deadline’s big domino, so expect more action to follow today. Follow our live blog for frequent updates, predictions and analysis ahead of Monday’s 6 p.m. ET deadline.On the subject of unhittable pitchers …The MizDilip Vishwanat / Getty ImagesWe’ve never seen anything like thisNearly 200 years into the whole “baseball” thing, almost nothing in this sport is new. Jacob Misiorowski, however, is a different animal. He has never happened before, and his success is both mind-bending and a little unnerving.This afternoon, the Brewers ace starts against the woeful Angels. If he goes six innings and strikes out 10 guys while allowing one run and sitting at 101 miles per hour with his fastball, it will not even feel that special. “The Miz,” 24, has posted a 1.58 ERA and 185 strikeouts in 20 starts, grabbing a commanding lead in the NL Cy Young race.
