MINNEAPOLIS -- September callups haven’t been as impactful since MLB reduced expanded rosters to 28 players, but the Tigers have a three-time All-Star outfielder ready to add.
Welcome back, Riley Greene.
After three weeks out with a right hamstring strain, Greene rejoined the Tigers on Monday in Minneapolis and was officially activated when the rosters expanded by two spots on Tuesday. He went 1-for-2 with a pair of walks and played six innings in left field on Sunday in a rehab assignment with Triple-A Toledo. Righty reliever Beau Brieske was recalled from Toledo as Detroit's second roster addition.
“I want to be here every single game, and not being able to be there was tough,” said Greene in the Tigers clubhouse before Monday’s 11-1 loss to the Twins. “But injuries, they happen, and I was focused on trying to get as healthy as I can as fast as possible.”
Greene flew out just shy of the warning track in left against lefty starter Aaron Rozek, then worked walks of eight and seven pitches in his next two plate appearances. His base hit was a ground-ball single up the middle on a 3-2 fastball in the fifth. From there, he went first to third on an infield single. His only play in the field was running down an Aaron Sabato double in the left-field corner.
Greene went 1-for-6 over two games with the Mud Hens, who spent the weekend in St. Paul, Minn.
“He’s a big boost to the lineup and presence, and even just him in the clubhouse I think has been good for us,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “We saw him last week before he went on rehab for a couple days and he walked a couple times, went first to third, got a base hit. Just playing baseball again, it was good to see.”
The Tigers' offense has badly missed Greene since his last game for them on Aug. 11. Detroit entered Sunday slashing .206/.280/.335 as a team since Greene’s injury, well below their season slash line of .239/.316/.400, and had just two hits in Sunday’s loss to the Dodgers. Between Greene’s injury and Dillon Dingler’s recent slump, the Tigers have lacked a feared presence in the middle of the lineup, leaving Hinch to get creative with the batting order and look for favorable matchups with younger, less proven hitters.
“Doesn’t suck to have an All-Star back in your lineup, and the energy he brings, and the presence he brings and the stability,” Hinch said. “But it doesn’t have to just be him. We can pick up the pace in multiple areas of the batting order and on defense and on the mound, and create our own momentum.”