SEATTLE — On Aug. 17, 2020, Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal reported to the Detroit Tigers’ alternate training site in Toledo, Ohio. They stretched indoors. They were the first players outside on a quiet, dull morning during the pandemic.The previous night, both had gotten the biggest phone calls of their lives. Mize was in his downtown Detroit apartment when he learned he was getting promoted to the major leagues. He gave a thumbs-up to his wife, Tali, while on the phone. They poured a glass of wine to celebrate.Skubal was at the alternate site playing video games when a call from Dave Littlefield, the Tigers’ former vice president of player development, popped up on his phone.The next morning, neither player was sure how to approach it with the other. But both wanted to share the news.Mize finally broke the ice.“Did you get a phone call last night?” he said.“Yeah,” Skubal said.“Are you going to the big leagues?” Mize said.“Yeah,” Skubal said, smiling.That morning, they jumped around “like little kids,” Mize once said. Soon, they were boarding a private plane, on their way to Chicago to make their MLB debuts in an empty park.They were beacons of hope in Al Avila’s pitching-centric rebuild. They represented the promise of better days ahead.That was six years ago.Together, Mize and Skubal morphed from scrawny kids to formidable grown men. They rehabbed from injuries together, and succeeded and failed together. Skubal went into overdrive and became the best pitcher in the sport. Mize battled ups and downs, twists and turns, but became an All-Star. Now Mize and Skubal are gone, shipped at the trade deadline after Detroit’s disappointing first half. In some ways, the Tigers are again reshaping for the road ahead.Did the Tigers get enough back for Tarik Skubal?Eno Sarris and Derek VanRiperBut after thumping the Seattle Mariners 8-0 on Tuesday, the Tigers have won four in a row. They have scored at least eight runs in six straight games.Somehow, they are only 1 1/2 games out of a playoff spot.“There’s a lot of emotions in all of this,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “Once that settles, you look up and there’s 50 games, and we’re going to play all of them, and we’re going to try to win every game.”It has been difficult to describe the emotional pulse of the Detroit Tigers the past few days. The prevailing mood has not quite been solemn. Not quite morose. It has simply been … different.Skubal is a Dodger. Mize is a Padre. Jake Rogers, the beloved backup catcher who had been in the organization longer than both, went to the Baltimore Orioles, then got traded to the Boston Red Sox.“It’s definitely a little strange,” first baseman Spencer Torkelson said. “If I’ve learned anything about the big leagues, it’s a next-man-up mentality. Those guys are going to be missed, for sure, especially as friends. … The show goes on in the big leagues and in life in general.”When Detroit traded Skubal, it marked the end of a timeline, the conclusion of the Tigers’ run with the best pitcher in baseball. In Mize, the Tigers lost a figure who also had a tremendous impact on the organization and its culture. He was the No. 1 pick in 2018. There was a time when every pitch he threw was a story.