Greene's Uncrustables-powered trip to Cleveland

This story was excerpted from Jason Beck’s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

CLEVELAND – Imagine a workplace where there’s a constant reminder of your must-have food. It could be an office where the pie charts in presentations literally look like a favorite pie, or a corner office with a window view of a great restaurant across the street.

Now you have an idea of what it’s like every time Riley Greene and the Tigers come to Progressive Field, where Uncrustables advertising abounds.

The round on-deck circles literally look like Uncrustables. The back wall of the visiting dugout has a giant ad for them. Considering they’re made and marketed by the J.M. Smucker Company, based just south of Cleveland in Orrville, Ohio, the partnership makes sense.

“There’s a lot of them here,” Greene said of the advertisements. “I noticed. A lot of them.”

Greene’s love affair with Uncrustables – basically pre-packaged peanut butter and jelly sandwiches without the crust – has been well documented. At his first All-Star Game in 2024, he mentioned them among his go-to pregame snacks in an episode of MLB’s Over the Plate.

“I love Uncrustables,” he told the show. “I could eat 10 of them in one sitting.”

Greene has tempered his diet a bit over the last couple of years in an effort to stay on the field, cutting back on fast food and favoring lean meats. But he still has a soft spot for the peanut butter and jelly snacks, which he’ll often throw in a toaster.

“I think it's Greeney's superstition before games,” teammate and good friend Spencer Torkelson said earlier this summer. “He always has a toasted Uncrustable or two.”

He’s far from an outlier. Even in a sport where nutritionists abound and specialty diets begin early in the farm system, Uncrustables are a go-to item among players. They’re quick energy, easy to grab and easy to digest, which is why they can be found in a lot of Major League clubhouses, including in Detroit. Outfielder Ben Malgeri was spotted devouring one before batting practice during the last homestand.

“If I need a quick bite, Uncrustable is probably the go-to,” Torkelson said. “That’s really last minute.”

With all the advertising at Progressive Field, the stash is impossible to miss when walking by the visiting clubhouse dining room. So when the Tigers and Guardians opened this weekend’s series with a split doubleheader on Friday, it raised the question: How many Uncrustables could Greene devour?

“Two or three,” he said.

Turns out, it was just two, a practice of self-restraint on his part.

“Gotta watch the carbs,” said Greene, who started in Game 1 but was on the bench for Game 2.

So, given all the reminders of Greene’s favorite food, how does he hit here in Cleveland? Well, he fared pretty well Saturday, homering twice and barely missing a third in a four-hit, four-RBI game in the Tigers' 6-0 win. His sixth homer against Parker Messick in the sixth broke a tie with Houston’s Daikin Park and Texas’ Globe Life Park for his most home runs (6) at any stadium besides Comerica Park.

However, he entered Saturday batting just .183 (21-for-115) here. But with over one-third of those hits going for extra bases, Greene packs a little extra power here.