Tarik Skubal has officially hit the mid-camp wall. Next step, crash on through it.

His third start of the spring was a grind, exactly the kind of grind he was looking for.

“Yeah, I actually did want that,” he said, after throwing 63 pitches and getting into the fourth inning for the first time this spring in the Tigers’ 5-3 spring win over the Pirates on Sunday. “I thought it was a good workday. Did I have my best stuff or best execution? It’s pretty clear to say no.

“But in terms of a workday, I thought it was really beneficial.”

BOX SCORE: Tigers 5, Pirates 3

His first two starts were relatively breezy in comparison. He’d barely worked out of the stretch, allowing only two baserunners in five scoreless innings. Two Pirates reached base against him in the first inning Sunday.

He ended up allowing a pair of runs, including a home run by Tommy Pham and a broken-bat RBI single by Joey Bart.

“It was good to work out of the stretch,” he said. “To continue to make pitches and to pitch in the fourth and make pitches when you’re tired. When we get into games in two or three weeks or whenever we start playing, you’re going to be tired and you need to make pitches deep into the game.”

He needed 20 pitches to get out of the first inning and threw just two first-pitch strikes to the five hitters, walking Endy Rodriguez in a six-pitch at-bat. It was his slider that bailed him out of disadvantage counts.

That’s why he threw 15 of them.

“That was a product of situations and not necessarily of trying to throw more sliders,” Skubal said. “The changeup wasn’t in the zone a ton today, so I was forced to throw a different pitch to get back into counts.”

His changeup may have been inconsistent, but he ended his outing by punching out left-handed hitting Adam Frazier with a really good one.

“I treat every outing like a game,” Skubal said. “I don’t want to go through the motions out there. I’m treating it as a game that counts. Obviously the adrenaline runs different. But mentally, I have to be locked in to where opening day I’m ready to go and I’ve been practicing like that.”

The mid-camp wall is real for starting pitchers. So much so, that managers and coaches structure the buildup to account for it.

“One of the reasons we hover at three and four innings is to get over that,” manager AJ Hinch said. “They can cruise a little bit once they’ve built their pitch count up to 50 or 60. Today was the second time (Skubal) did that. We’re going to try to get him through this mid-camp thing.

“These guys have been going at it pretty hard for a while. This is very normal.”

Skubal said he woke up after his first two starts with no soreness.

“I felt like I didn’t do a ton of work,” he said. “I think I will be decently sore tomorrow.”

That’s the wall. The buildup for starting pitchers is slow and steady up to the third start. Then it starts to accelerate. Skubal is ready for that.

“My workload needs to increase,” Skubal said. “I threw 63 pitches today? I need to get that to 90-ish. It needs to go up. The up-downs need to go up. I need to start pitching in the fifth and sixth.

“I feel good right now. I’m tired now and that’s a good sign.”

Tiger ball

That first inning might’ve looked familiar to Tigers’ fans. The Tigers, who were shut out in their spring game at Dunedin on Saturday, got on the board in the first inning Sunday, deploying the hustle-ball style they used so effectively last season.

Against lefty Andrew Heaney, center fielder Jahmai Jones beat out an infield single. Andy Ibanez followed with a text book hit-behind-the-runner single to right field, sending Jones to third.

Jones scored on a sacrifice fly by Gleyber Torres.

“That’s a big part of this time in camp for position players,” Hinch said. “We’re now fully ready to go so you’re going to see us start to send more runners. Going first to third is expected. We’re playing our brand of baseball.

“Two weeks from today we’re leaving (for two exhibition games in San Francisco). We need to be aware of where we are on the calendar. We’re not going to just flip a switch when the season starts. I’m glad the guys are taking these games in the middle of camp and getting after it.”

Game bits

Javier Báez got off his best swing of the spring. He unloaded on a 90-mph sinker from right-hander Jarod Bayless and sent it 440 feet onto the berm in deep left-center. It was a three-run shot. He also singled in the fifth. “We don’t need a reminder (that he can still drive baseballs), we need him to get good pitches to hit,” Hinch said. “He’s putting in a lot of work to try to get better pitches to hit and is timing is getting better.”

… Jones got two at-bats against Heaney and he didn’t waste them. Jones, who had an OPS over .800 against lefties last year, followed up his single with a triple into the left field corner in the third. “One of the things we told him when he got here, he’s got to hit lefties and he has to be an aggressive base runner,” Hinch said. “That’s what we were drawn to with him and he’s taken that to heart.”

… Lefty Tyler Holton, very uncharacteristically, walked two hitters in the fourth inning. But on both walks, he threw some pitches at the edge of the zone that were called balls by home-plate umpire Sean Barber. Holton did not challenge either pitch. Hinch was asked if he’s taken the challenge away, which he plans to do soon to prepare for the season, he said no. “(Will) Vest challenged and he won,” Hinch said. “He’s two for two.”