Miguel Cabrera slapped hands with the first-base coach and held up his right arm in the air when he touched first base. He flashed a big smile while rounding second base. He celebrated, bow-and-arrow style, on his way to third base.

And then Cabrera waved to the fans behind the dugout in celebration of the 511th home run in his 21-year MLB career.

The Detroit Tigers’ celebration of a potential win, however, will have to wait. The Tigers controlled a 4-0 lead over the Kansas City Royals through four innings in the second of three games in the series on Wednesday, but the game was suspended after a 1-hour, 20-minute rain delay due to inclement weather at Comerica Park.

He really kicked off the night, Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. We were three outs away from it being over.

The game will resume in the top of the fifth inning at 1:10 p.m. Thursday. The Tigers and Royals will play Thursday’s regularly scheduled series finale approximately 40 minutes after the conclusion of Wednesday’s game.

It wasn’t great from the first inning on, said left-hander Tarik Skubal. “The ball was wet, and the umpire bag was wet, so every ball got wet. You just do what you can and try to dry it off. I guess the problem was the puddles on the field, but you’d think that we would have been able to get through 10 more minutes.

The Tigers (74-83) jumped out to a 1-0 lead on Cabrera’s opposite-field solo home run in the second inning. Cabrera, in the pouring rain, connected on a first-pitch fastball from right-hander Jonathan Bowlan.

The 40-year-old drove the ball with a 106.1-mph exit velocity. The ball traveled 397 feet to right-center field and hit the top of the double wall, above the yellow line. The new dimensions—lowering the height of the wall from 13 feet to 7 feet—granted Cabrera another homer in his legendary career.

I was actually upstairs changing my jersey, Skubal said. “Mine was soaked. I didn’t even see it until I saw it on TV. I was changing jerseys, so I didn’t even get to enjoy that moment.

With 511 homers, Cabrera tied Mel Ott for 25th on the all-time list. He also tied Norm Cash for second in Tigers history with 373 home runs. He is hitting .255 with four home runs in 95 games this season.

Cabrera won’t play Thursday, but he will play Friday, Saturday, and Sunday against the Cleveland Guardians to finish his career.

The Tigers increased their lead to 4-0 with a three-run home run from Tyler Nevin off left-handed reliever Angel Zerpa, following Cabrera’s single and Andy Ibáñez’s double. The one-out single marked Cabrera’s 3,170th hit in his career.

Skubal is on fire

Skubal dominated in his final start.

The 26-year-old fired four scoreless innings with eight strikeouts, throwing 40 of 52 pitches for strikes. The Royals had two hits against him: Salvador Perez’s single in the first inning and Edward Olivares’ double in the second inning.

I was just trying to throw it over the plate and get back in the dugout as fast as I could,” Skubal said. “It’s hard to grip spin. Spin is a little bit different than fastballs and changeups.

Skubal racked up two strikeouts in the first inning, two strikeouts in the second, three strikeouts in the third and one strikeout in the fourth. In the third inning, he punched out Dairon Blanco (swinging, 94.2 mph four-seam fastball), Maikel Garcia (called strike, 88.2 mph slider) and Bobby Witt Jr. (swinging, 85 mph changeup).

The Tigers needed three more outs to make Wednesday’s game official. Skubal took the mound for the top of the fifth inning, but he didn’t get to throw a pitch. The grounds crew rolled the tarp onto the field and the game went into a delay at 7:45 p.m.

At 9:05 p.m., the Tigers and Royals officially suspended Wednesday’s game until Thursday.

I had a lot more than just a few more outs in the tank, too, Skubal said. I felt pretty good, so it’s unfortunate that the weather shut that one down, and being the last one, it kind of stinks.

Skubal threw 21 changeups (40.4%), 17 four-seam fastballs (32.7%), six sinkers (11.5%), five sliders (9.6%) and three knuckle curves (5.8%). He generated 14 whiffs on seven changeups, two fastballs, two sinkers, two sliders, and one knuckle curve.

In 2023, Skubal posted a 2.80 ERA with 14 walks and 102 strikeouts over 80⅓ innings in 15 starts. He missed the first half of the season while recovering and rehabbing from flexor tendon surgery in his left elbow, but he still topped 100 strikeouts on the season for the third year in a row.

He’s been incredible, Hinch said. “It’s been fun to watch him get back up and running. We had the governor on him early (in his return), and the only thing that stopped him was the rain. He was in complete control of the game. Now, he has an offseason ahead to prepare for an even better season next year.