DETROIT -- Riley Greene put every ounce of frustration and power he had into the swing.
An 0-for-9 funk.
Eight postseason strikeouts.
The Tigers’ stagnant offense. The lost division crown. The smattering of boos after his last at-bat.
All of it.
With Game 4 of the ALDS vs. the Mariners tied in the bottom of the sixth and elimination on the line, the 80.6 mph slider came right down the middle like a powder keg. Greene shifted his weight to his back foot and swung from his shoes, sending the ball screaming toward the right-center-field seats at 111.9 mph.
There was no doubt it would clear the fence and several rows beyond it. It landed in a frenzied sea of waving orange towels and had the crowd roaring back to life as the Tigers pulled ahead of the Mariners for a final time on Wednesday.
But Greene didn’t care if the Statcast-projected 454-footer was the longest of his career at Comerica Park (it was) or his hardest-hit ball of the postseason (that, too). He honestly didn’t even mind the boos in the fourth inning.
“It was a homer,” he said, “and we put another run on the board, so that's all that mattered.”
Greene didn’t just hit a homer during Wednesday’s 9-3 win, he might have hit the homer. His first long ball of October put Detroit ahead for good in the do-or-die Game 4 and sent the AL Division Series back to Seattle for a winner-take-all Game 5 on Friday.
“It's huge. That's the kind of player he is,” catcher Dillon Dingler said. “Obviously, people go through their ups and downs, but he's a very clutch player. Javy [Báez is] a very clutch player. We have a lot of clutch players on our team. We need that initial push, and then everything kind of falls in after it."
“Falling in” was an understatement. While Detroit’s offense had shown sparks of life prior to Greene’s solo shot, his contribution set the lineup ablaze during a four-run sixth that featured a two-run homer from Báez. The Tigers tacked on another in the seventh on a long ball from Gleyber Torres, and scored a final time in the ninth to cap a commanding performance and save a series that seemed all but lost before Greene stepped to the plate.
“He’s a tough kid,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “He's had to endure a lot. I play him every day. He's in the middle of the order. He gets managed against, and he comes up big right when you need it. That was a big swing.”
Greene has had plenty of big swings during his career year, closing out the regular season as just the second player in franchise history to amass 31 doubles, 36 home runs and 111 RBIs in his age-24 season or younger (Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg is the other). Though Greene’s strikeout totals have risen, so, too, has his aggressiveness at the plate and ability to hit for power.
He was just the third left-handed hitter in Tigers history to post 30 homers, 30 doubles and 100 RBIs, joining Bobby Higginson (2000) and Prince Fielder (’12). Detroit knew it was getting a solid outfielder with a sweet swing when it drafted Greene in the first round (fifth overall) of the 2019 MLB Draft, and he’s rarely disappointed during his four years with the Tigers.
Greene’s re-emergence on Wednesday happened at the precise moment the Tigers needed it most, which surprised no one -- on Detroit’s side, anyway -- least of all Tarik Skubal, who was watching from the dugout.
“I saw the swing,” said Skubal, who’ll start Game 5. “I heard it. I thought the ball went to left-center, and I had enough time to figure out where the ball was, and that was way back.
“Big swing. That's the guy he is. At any given point, he can run the ball out of the yard, and he's done that all year for us.”
What seems like months ago but was really only Tuesday, MLB.com released a position-by-position breakdown of the ALDS. In it, writer Anthony Castrovince was tasked to predict the series outcome.
“Let’s go with the Mariners in four,” he wrote, “but if it gets to a Game 5, and the ball is in Skubal’s hands … uh oh.”
Well, Detroit, “uh oh” time is here. Greene is riding high, the series is headed back to Seattle, the place that helped raise Skubal, and he’s heading toward T-Mobile Park with a head full of steam and his buddy Greene riding shotgun.