Washington, D.C. — If Riley Greene is not named to the American League All-Star team, there needs to be a full-scale investigation.
Greene, after enjoying the most productive month of his career in June, christened July with a pair of three-run home runs to propel the Tigers to a 11-2 romp over the Washington Nationals in the first of two Wednesday at Nationals Park.
“Hitters hit, man, hitters hit,” said catcher Jake Rogers. “He’s always kind of done it, but right now…”
Rogers broke off at that point, not risking any kind of jinx on a hot streak.
“I’m not going to say anything else,” Rogers said. “He’s locked in.”
BOX SCORE: Tigers 11, Nationals 2
Greene posted a 1.034 OPS in June and set career-bests with 36 hits, 15 extra-base hits and a .630 slugging percentage. He followed up a 24-RBI month of May with 23 RBI in June. And he’s starting July with six in one day.
“He’s Riley Greene,” manager AJ Hinch shrugged. “There are these little bursts of huge performance with very rare down time. He’s a guy who brings it every day. He wants to be good. He pushes himself to be good. … He faces the toughest matchups in the biggest moments in the middle of our order and continues to get good pitches to hit.
“When he does that, he’s really developing into an incredible Major League player.”
Greene’s first homer came in a six-run first inning against right-hander Trevor Williams, a 380-footer he hooked around the foul pole in right. The second came in the fourth off righty reliever Jackson Rutledge and it was a bomb.
He whacked an elevated splitter and sent it 411 feet over the wall in right-center. The ball left his bat at 110 mph.
They were homers Nos. 20 and 21 and upped his RBI total to 69. He’s now one of three Tigers under the age of 25 to hit at least 20 homers before the All-Star break. The others: Willie Horton and Matt Nokes.
He’s homered in three straight games for the first time in his career and it was his fourth multi-homer game this season. His seasonal OPS (.904) is third in the American League behind Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh.
“It really helps when Greeney leads it off with a three-run homer,” Rogers said. “You set the tone right there and I always say, hitting is a contagious thing. Once you see a guy do something really well, everyone else kind of falls in line.”
After a rare two-day break following the rainout Tuesday, the Tigers came out with some controlled aggression against the soft-tossing Williams. Their patience at the plate not only forced him to throw 54 pitches to get the first three outs, it put them in position to do damage.
Eleven hitters came to the plate and banged out six hits, including two three-run homers.
“We did a real good job of laying off close pitches and coming into the middle of the plate,” Rogers said. “We had a really good approach against him.”
Opposite-field doubles by left-handed hitters Colt Keith and Zach McKinstry set the table and were also evidence of the Tigers’ patient approach. Instead of trying to pull the slower pitches and possibly rolling over and hitting ground balls to the pull side, they stayed back and served them into left field.
Those body blows helped set the table for the knockout swings, the first one by Greene and then Jake Rogers.
For Rogers, it was his first homer of the year, ending a stretch of 159 homerless plate appearances dating to Aug. 27, 2024.
“I’ve been putting together good at-bats, hitting the ball hard and drawing some walks,” Rogers said. “But it was good to see that one get over the fence to put us even farther head. Felt incredible.”
McKinstry finished with four hits and Keith had three. Spencer Torkelson, whose 405-foot rocket to center was caught at the wall, had two hits, including his 18th homer.
The outpouring of runs helped ease the burden on what ended up a straight bullpen game for the Tigers.
“That was big,” Hinch said. “We knew we were going to use pitching and obviously they get a longer leash when you score runs like that.”
Right-hander Sawyer Gipson-Long, who was expected to pitch bulk innings after opener Tyler Holton, was put on the 15-day IL before the game with neck stiffness. Hinch, before the game, said he was prepared to use all 10 relievers if he needed to.
He didn’t have to, thanks in part to a strong, bounce-back outing by lefty Brant Hurter.
Holton pitched two strong innings and gave way to Hurter, who has been working to get his mechanics back in order. He’d walked five and hit three batters in his previous three outings, not recording an out in 11 straight hitters.
Things were much crisper for him in this one. He struck out five in 2.2 innings with just one walk. He threw 53 pitches, 31 strikes.
“He’s a big arm and he’s going to be a big arm for us down the road,” Rogers said. “We need him to be in the zone. It was just a little tweak here and there. He made the adjustments. To get him back in the zone is huge because that’s a weird lefty and there’s a lot of lefty (hitters) in these lineups. He’s going to be big for us down the road.
“It was great to see him bounce back.”
With the big cushion, Hinch was able to extend both Tyler Owens, who was called up from Triple-A Toledo on Wednesday morning to take Gipson-Long’s spot on the roster, and righty Dylan Smith.
“I ran those guys pretty much into the red as far as their pitch-counts went,” Hinch said.
Owens wasn’t able to finish the sixth inning. He walked three hitters, including pinch-hitter Josh Bell with the bases loaded. Smith got the final out in the sixth, stranding the bases loaded, and then put up zeros in the seventh, eighth and ninth.
“They allowed us to get into Game 2 in good fashion,” Hinch said.
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky
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