CHICAGO — Tarik Skubal wasn't at his best.

Skubal, the ace of the Detroit Tigers, remains the frontrunner to win the American League Cy Young Award, but the steady left-hander stumbled for the first time in a long time Saturday night against the lowly Chicago White Sox.

He allowed three runs in five innings, throwing 88 pitches.

The Tigers, though, supported Skubal by scoring eight runs between the third and fourth innings, which led to a blowout 13-4 win over the White Sox in the second of four games in the series at Guaranteed Rate Field.

"I don't know what was going on with the balls, but I wasn't a fan of them," said Skubal, who struggled to grip the baseballs in the humidity. "I've never thrown out that many balls before. I don't really want that to be a story, either, and that's not an excuse or anything, but it is what it is. You got to learn to pitch around some things and deal with it because it's not going to be the last time that happens."

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Skubal has an MLB-leading 2.58 ERA in 26 starts.

The Tigers (64-66) can reach .500 for the first time since June 5 with back-to-back wins Sunday and Monday to conclude the four-game series, thus sweeping the White Sox, who dropped to 31-99.

"It doesn't matter what I feel if we win," Skubal said. "The goal of the game is to win every day. We won today, so on to the next day. Let's win tomorrow."

In Saturday's game, Skubal gave up eight hits — only the second time he has allowed more than seven hits this season — with zero walks and eight strikeouts. Five of the eight hits came in the 26-pitch third inning, with four of them in a row.

The White Sox opened the third with four consecutive hits: Dominic Fletcher ripped a double to right field on a down-and-in slider, Brooks Baldwin flared a single to center field on a fastball at the bottom of the strike zone, Corey Julks smacked a single to right field on an inside sinker, and Luis Robert Jr. pulled a single to left field on a middle-middle changeup that should've been below the zone.

"I gave up eight hits, seven singles," Skubal said. "I think one of them was hit hard. Everything else was through holes or found holes. That's the game of baseball."

The hits from Fletcher and Julks were with two strikes, while Robert jumped a poorly located first-pitch changeup. One run scored on each of the singles from Julks and Robert, cutting the Tigers' lead to 5-2.

The White Sox scored their third run, making it 5-3, with one out in the third inning, when Andrew Vaughn redirected an up-and-in sinker for a hard-hit single into center field. One pitch before the single, Vaughn missed a home run opportunity by fouling off a middle-middle changeup.

"He wasn't that sharp," manager A.J. Hinch said. "It didn't look like he could throw the ball where he wanted to like he normally does. He had to fight through a couple of soft hits, a couple of hard hits. ... It shows he's human a little bit."

After Vaughn's single, Skubal retired eight of the final nine batters he faced to complete his rocky start. Three of the eight hits against him belonged to Julks, who set the tone for the White Sox with a leadoff single in the first inning.

Skubal generated 11 whiffs on a 49 swings — a 22.4% whiff rate — with four fastballs, five changeups and two sliders. His fastball averaged 95.6 mph, down 1.3 mph from his season average.

"Velo goes down a little bit, you have trouble commanding things," Skubal said, explaining what happens when the ball feels slippery. "You got to learn to somehow get a grip or do something better, so that's something I'll take away from this one."

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Supporting Skubal

The Tigers ran circles around left-hander Ky Bush and right-handed reliever Touki Toussaint in the third and fourth innings, occurring immediately before and after Skubal surrendered three runs.

The breakthroughs created longer-than-usual wait times for Skubal. The four-run third kept him on the bench for nearly 19 minutes, then the four-run fourth kept him on the bench for more than 23 minutes.

"The offense picked me up big time," Skubal said. "It's 5-3 there, and then they come back and respond with four (runs), so it kind of puts the game away from me. One, it gives me a breather. Two, it gives me the confidence that it's going to take a lot to beat us."

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The Tigers grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first inning on Andy Ibáñez's RBI single, but they separated themselves from the White Sox in the third and fourth innings.

For a 2-0 lead, Matt Vierling turned on a middle-in fastball from Bush for a leadoff solo home run to left-center field in the third inning, his 15th homer of the season. Colt Keith's groundout, Jake Rogers' double and Parker Meadows' single also drove in runs, extending the margin to 5-0.

Facing Toussaint, the Tigers walked three times in a row — Ryan Kreidler, Vierling and Jace Jung — to start the fourth inning, in which runs scored on Riley Greene's force out and Spencer Torkelson's single for a 7-3 lead. A two-out single from Rogers made it 9-3.

"I just told myself to stay more relaxed and tone it down a little bit," said Rogers, who snapped an 0-for-18 slump. "Me and the hitting coaches noticed that I picked up a leg kick a couple of weeks ago, and my body started to squeeze and crunch, and I would have to come out of that, so I just did a smaller leg kick to calm down my upper body. I've been working hard and trying to see the ball as best I can."

Late-game runs

The White Sox scored their fourth and final run in the seventh inning off right-handed reliever Brenan Hanifee. In the top of the ninth, Keith crushed a two-run home run — his 12th of the season — for an 11-4 advantage.

It was Keith's first homer since July 27.

Zach McKinstry also tacked on a two-run home run in the ninth for a 13-4 lead. Both Keith and McKinstry hit home runs off right-handed reliever John Brebbia.

Vierling, Keith, Rogers Meadows and McKinstry produced multi-hit games in the Tigers' 14-hit performance, which also included five walks. Every starter except Ryan Kreidler collected a hit.

Rogers went 3-for-5 with three RBIs.

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers smash White Sox, 13-4, in support of Tarik Skubal