DETROIT >> When ESPN selected the Twins and Tigers to feature on Sunday Night Baseball, they were looking for a good show to broadcast to their national audience. They certainly got one — it just happened to come at the expense of the Twins.

Reigning American League Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal dominated the Twins from the beginning of his seven-inning outing to the end, leading the Tigers to a 3-0 win over the Twins in the series finale at Comerica Park.

“We’re talking about not just a very good pitcher — we’re talking about a guy that when he’s on, he’s going to be quite tough,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “And I think the way that you would watch this game (is) look at it and say, ‘Yeah, Skubal was excellent tonight from beginning to end.’”

Skubal started his day by striking out Byron Buxton. There was a whole lot more of that coming.

The ace of the Tigers (53-32) and quite possibly the best pitcher in Major League Baseball at the moment, struck out eight of the first nine Twins batters he faced. Only one, Ryan Jeffers, put the ball in play, flying out to center. Two of the batters he struck out came after he fell behind 3-0 on them.

Within that stretch, he punched out seven straight batters, most of them on low changeups. In total, he got 15 of his 22 swing and misses on that pitch alone.

“He throws a changeup that you don’t pick up,” Jeffers said. “He has a changeup that you swing at out of the zone because he can establish 100 (miles per hour).”

The next time through the Twins lineup, they were at least able to put the bat to the ball. And yet they still came away with next to nothing.

Skubal retired the first 13 batters he faced before Ty France hit a single which fell between center fielder Parker Meadows and right fielder Kerry Carpenter. The fifth-inning hit was the only one the Twins (40-44) would manage all night against Skubal, who later walked Christian Vázquez. Neither runner who reached against him advanced past first base.

Before his night was over, Skubal struck out 13 Twins, matching a career high. He got all nine in the batting order to go down swinging and got a couple of them — Harrison Bader and Brooks Lee — twice.

“Being on top of both the fastball and the changeup is a difficult task so I think you’ve got to pick one and go after it,” Baldelli said. “We didn’t get to enough of the pitches that were in the zone and, granted, probably expanded a bit more than we would’ve wanted to tonight.”

His brilliance meant that Chris Paddack would have had to have been nearly perfect himself to keep the Twins in the game. And while Paddack did enough to give the Twins a chance to hang around, it wasn’t enough against Skubal near his best.

Paddack allowed a solo home run to Kerry Carpenter in the first inning, another solo shot to Riley Greene in the fourth and a third run on a Carpenter triple in the fifth, which ended his night.

“I’ll be the first to say it: it was an unbelievable performance on his end, so kudos to him,” Paddack said of Skubal. “I just wish I could have (given) him a little better matchup tonight because I love for those moments against (a pitcher) who has established himself as an ace and one of the best pitchers in the league.”