On his way to becoming one of baseball’s best pitchers, Detroit’s unquestioned ace and the AL’s next Cy Young Award winner, Tarik Skubal crossed paths with a veteran pitcher — another lefty — who took him under his wing.

On Monday, Skubal will intersect with Matthew Boyd again.

In one of those full-circle baseball stories seemingly ripped from a movie script, the former Tigers teammates will start against each other in Game 2 of the AL Division Series as Cleveland looks to take a 2-0 lead after shutting out Detroit in the opener.

Skubal vs. Boyd wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card.

“Baseball is incredible,” said Tigers manager A.J. Hinch, who had his own reunion last week in returning to Houston for the wild-card round. “It leads you to sometimes familiar places, and this one is leading us to a familiar face in a really big game against somebody who we all respect and admire.”

It would have been almost unimaginable a Skubal-Boyd matchup would ever take place, let alone on October’s grand stage.

The 33-year-old Boyd’s career was at a crossroads just months ago as he rehabbed from Tommy John surgery last year. His prospects were limited.

“Middle of June, I’m throwing showcases to teams and coaching kids’ Little League games,” Boyd said Sunday, reflecting on his journey.

What happened next was as unexpected as Cleveland’s run to an AL Central title.

Boyd kept pushing, and helped by Skubal’s encouragement from his recovery years earlier from the same elbow procedure, he found a new home with the Guardians, who avoided a tricky trade market and signed him to a one-year contract in June to add depth to a rotation rocked by injuries.

He’s made eight starts since joining Cleveland. His ninth will be against a team he knows better than his current one.

“Amazing,” Boyd said. “I couldn’t write this script.”

Back in 2020, Skubal was an up-and-coming prospect with the Tigers, when the COVID pandemic struck. A wide-eyed rookie, Skubal was looking to find his place in the big leagues when Boyd became sort of a big brother.

Stealing a page from former teammate Justin Verlander’s playbook, Boyd hosted team dinners on the road. Skubal remembers the gatherings helping him and some of the other Tigers players feel connected at a time when isolation was mandated.

“We probably weren’t supposed to be in each other’s rooms,” Skubal said, recalling the restrictions of those times. “He had dinner for us. He’s a great mentor and leader. He means a lot to me.”

They grew close, from teammates to tight friends.

When Skubal struggled during his first two seasons with the Tigers, he often turned to Boyd for guidance. He was always there, and more times than not, what Boyd told Skubal helped.

“He had a lot of advice and a lot of good stuff for me throughout all that,” Skubal said. “That speaks to the guy he is. He’s the nicest guy in the world. I told him that, like, ‘Dude, you should act a little more mad sometimes.’ He’s so nice all the time.”

The consummate teammate, Boyd downplayed his impact on Skubal.

“We’re all trying to make each other better,” he said. “So if there were any ways that I helped Tarik, he helped me equally as much.”

MLB didn’t have clear angle to reverse steal

Even with up to 24 video cameras, Major League Baseball didn’t have a precise picture showing whether Michael Massey’s glove slapped Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s left foot before it touched the corner of second base.

Lance Barrett’s initial safe call stood awarding the stolen base, and Alex Verdugo followed with a run-scoring single that gave the New York Yankees the lead for good in a 6-5 win over the Kansas City Royals in their AL Division Series opener on Saturday night.

“They just said there was nothing clear and convincing to overturn it, and if he had been called out, that call would have stood, too,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said Sunday.

In the first postseason game with five lead changes, the score was 5-5 when Chisholm singled against Michael Lorenzen leading off the seventh. Chisholm took off for second as Anthony Volpe struck out and when Chisholm slid into second, his left foot hit the dirt inches short of the base, causing him to pop up.

Second baseman Michael Massey jumped to snag catcher Salvador Perez’s high throw and swiped down with his glove as Chisholm approached the base. The glove hit the front left side of Chisholm’s cleats as the back left of the shoe reached the base.

After consulting on the phone with Royals instant replay coordinator Bill Duplissea, who was in a room filled with monitors off the stadium tunnel, Quatraro signaled for a video review.

Chris Conroy, the umpire in the Rockefeller Center replay operations center, spent about two minutes checking an array of video in rectangles on a large screen inches in front of him. Informed of Conroy’s decision, Barrett announced to the Yankee Stadium crowd: “After review, the call on the field stands. The runner is safe.”

Watching from the Royals dugout, arms folded, Quatraro shook his head.

“After viewing all relevant angles, the replay official could not definitively determine that the fielder tagged the runner prior to the runner touching second base,” MLB said in a statement. “Additionally, the replay official could not definitively determine that the runner failed to maintain contact with the base as the fielder was applying the tag.”