PHOENIX – What happens when a Major League team on a season-opening road trip shares a hotel with the NFL owners’ meetings?
Two of Detroit’s most prominent sports figures finally get a chance to meet over coffee.
A.J. Hinch, meet Dan Campbell.
The Tigers’ manager and Lions’ head coach have exchanged text messages often and attended each others’ games, Hinch said, but had not actually had a chance to sit down and talk in person. The scheduling coincidence finally gave them that opportunity Tuesday morning at their hotel, nearly 2,000 miles from their neighboring workplaces at Comerica Park and Ford Field.
“We got together and were able to catch up on a lot of things,” Hinch said later Tuesday before the Tigers took on the Diamondbacks at Chase Field. “I have so much respect for how he coaches, how he leads. We have a common bond, the love of Detroit, and the sports teams’ emergence have come at the same time, which has been really cool.
“I asked him a ton of football questions. He asked me a ton of baseball questions. Really cool morning before he took off to move on towards the [NFL] Draft.”
Though the sports and their respective schedules are vastly different, Hinch said they found a lot of common topics to discuss and compare.
“Just the difference in the cadence of the seasons, and how the players are very similar,” he said. “We each try to get the most out of young players. We each try to put guys in a position to be successful. The range of emotions in the competition I think are pretty similar. But one football game is about the equivalent of 10 baseball games. That’s probably why I can be so even-keeled and why he’s so emotional. We laughed about that quite a bit.
“But mostly just about how to run a staff, how to run players, working through a season, going from low expectations to high expectations, the definition of success. We’re going to do it again and be able to see more of each other. I hope to get him out to a game, and I’ll go to a few Lions games, but I think it’s really fun to overlap with the different coaches in the city as we watch Detroit sports get better and better and hopefully even better than it is now.”
The Tigers and Lions, Hinch pointed out, have had similar timelines in their rise to success. Both men also played in Detroit on teams at the other end of the spectrum: Hinch was a backup catcher on the 2003 Tigers during their 119-loss season near the end of his career, and Campbell was a tight end on the 2008 Lions during their 0-16 season, his final NFL campaign as a player.
“We both care deeply about our players and coaches and winning in Detroit,” Hinch said. “I think we both saw sports in Detroit very similarly, and where we were when we both got here and where it is now is really cool.”
And yes, Hinch said, the picture is accurate. Campbell was listed 6-foot-5 and 265 pounds as a player, and towers over his baseball counterpart.
“I probably wouldn’t have been an outside linebacker covering him,” Hinch said.
Carpenter moves out of leadoff spot, McGonigle moves up
After four games atop the Tigers’ order this season, Kerry Carpenter moved down to fifth on Tuesday. Colt Keith moved into the leadoff spot, reprising a role he held for much of last summer.
Carpenter went 1-for-16 with 10 strikeouts through the first four games. His 40 percent chase rate was 6.5 percent above his career mark, and his 47.2 percent whiff rate was nearly 20 points above his career norm. Meanwhile, Keith entered Tuesday with a 12.1 percent chase rate.
“I wanted to ease off Kerry a little bit, who seems to be swinging more and more, which is out of his norm,” Hinch said. “He can be a little bit more disciplined. I’ll get him back at the top at some point.”
Just as noticeable, Kevin McGonigle – who had been batting lower in the order to ease into his Major League career – moved into the second spot.
“I don’t think it matters where I hit Kevin,” Hinch said. “I wanted him to get his feet on the ground before I moved him up a little bit. That may change, or he may be up there the rest of his career. I have no idea.”
Hinch has room to tinker this series against a Diamondbacks pitching staff that has no left-handed relievers.