DETROIT -- This is why Riley Greene spent his offseason seeing tougher pitches in the cage, not just batting practice fastballs.
This is why the Tigers’ All-Star slugger spent Spring Training working on his plate discipline and not just swinging for the fences.
As he stood at the plate Saturday afternoon and fouled off pitch after pitch from appropriately named Marlins starter Janson Junk, he was keeping his third-inning at-bat alive, waiting for a pitch on which he could do damage.
The 10th pitch of the at-bat was it, a fastball over the middle of the plate. Greene crushed it into Comerica Park’s right-field seats for his first home run of the season, a three-run homer that put the Tigers firmly in command for a 6-1 win at Comerica Park.
Though Greene entered Saturday with a .204 average, he’s the first Tiger to reach base safely in the team’s first 15 games of a season since Brandon Inge’s 24-game streak in 2009. A good amount of credit for that streak goes to walks, eight of them so far this season and four in games in which he went hitless.
Greene has cut his chase rate from 31.2 percent last season to 25 percent in 2026 entering Saturday. His overall whiff rate is down from 30.9 to 29.1 percent. His 62.5 percent swing rate on pitches in the strike zone is the lowest of his career, but it’s partly a product of him becoming more discerning on pitches he can hit for damage.
Greene saw all offspeed pitches in his first at-bat against Junk, whose 2-1 changeup ended up lined into right field for an RBI single as part of a two-run opening inning. A catcher’s interference call on Agustín Ramírez put Dillon Dingler on base and extended the third inning for Greene, who missed a first-pitch fastball in the zone and took a slider at the knees to fall into an 0-2 hole.
From there, Greene went into survival mode to extend the at-bat. He didn’t offer at the slider in the dirt or the changeup well out of the zone, but he fouled off pitch after pitch to the right side, including a changeup, curveball and fastball on the seventh, eighth and ninth pitches of the battle.
Greene had fouled off a fastball over the plate on the fourth pitch. Junk’s 10th pitch went to virtually the same spot, and Greene was all over it. It was the lone hit of the inning, but it was big. The Statcast-projected 408-foot drive scored Dingler and Kevin McGonigle, who had walked to lead off the inning.
Greene’s four-RBI performance was his first since Aug. 26, 2025, when he hit a grand slam against the A’s. Saturday’s homer concluded the Tigers’ offense, but it was more than enough for starter Casey Mize (1-2), who fanned five batters over 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball for his first victory since Sept. 9, 2025.