Detroit — This is why it’s wise not to sweat Riley Greene’s hitting lulls. He’s proven time and time again that they are temporary. He’s always one or two good swings from breaking out of them.
Just like Tuesday night.
He entered the game on a 6-for-40 skid since the All-Star break. After grounding out in the first inning, he produced two doubles, his 26th home run and three RBI, sending the Tigers to their third straight win, 12-2, over the Arizona Diamondbacks at Comerica Park.
“One swing away, I think that’s for anyone,” Greene said. “It’s momentum, right? You get one hit, you get another hit, you get another. It’s just nice to see some of them fall.”
Speaking of momentum. The Tigers (63-46) blew open a 2-2 game with a home run barrage in the fifth inning against Arizona right-hander Brandon Pfaadt.
Gleyber Torres started it, breaking the tie with his second opposite-field home run in three games. Greene’s homer, a 420-foot rainbow into the right-field seats, came after a single by Kerry Carpenter.
BOX SCORE: Tigers 12, Diamondbacks 2
The two-run shot increased Greene’s career-high RBI total to 83.
With two outs, Zach McKinstry launched a two-strike changeup into the right-field seats, his ninth homer and another two-run shot.
“Our team is really good at making adjustments,” said Carpenter, who finished with a single and two doubles. “In the dugout tonight, everybody was pretty much understanding what (Pfaadt) was trying to do to us and we tried to make our counter moves and it ended up working.”
When the dust settled, the Tigers had sent 11 hitters to the plate and scored six times, rendering another wobbly start by Casey Mize irrelevant.
“They really picked me up,” Mize said. “That’s what happens when you are on a good team. We pick each other up.”
It’s been a rough stretch for Mize. After an All-Star first half, he endured his third straight turbulent start. For just the second time in his career, he didn’t survive the second inning.
“That’s three in a row that weren’t good at all,” said Mize, who has been tagged with 11 earned runs in his last 8.2 innings, raising his ERA from 2.63 to 3.43. “In this one, just not near enough strikes. I’m in a bit of a funk right now that I am going to work really hard to get out of.”
Mize had a disjointed week. He missed a full day between starts getting treatment on his sore right knee, which is why this start was pushed back a day. Mize said the knee was not an issue, but he never looked in sync.
“The knee is fine, the knee is good,” Mize said. “I was just missing a lot from the get-go and I didn’t find it. It had nothing to do with the knee. I was just misfiring too much.”
It took him 59 pitches to record five outs. He walked three, allowed three hits and did well to escape with just two runs on his ledger.
“The concern was the (nearly) 60 pitches in less than two innings,” manager AJ Hinch said. “He just couldn’t get a feel for the strike zone. I know his routine was disrupted but I looked at the numbers on the board and the power was there (96-mph average fastball velocity). That told me all I needed to know about his well-being.
“It was the lack of strikes and the long at-bats and the three walks in a short stint. He didn’t have it tonight.”
The Tigers, though, took him off the hook in the bottom of the fourth inning.
Greene hooked a double into the right-field corner and with one out Wenceel Perez singled him to third.
After McKinstry struck out, Perez stole second without a throw. That proved useful. Dillon Dingler, with two strikes, lined a single to center, scoring Greene and Perez to tie the game.
And the Tigers kept on hitting.
Carpenter, in just his second game back of the injured list, doubled (off lefty reliever Brandyn Garcia) and scored on Greene’s double (and 84th RBI) in the sixth.
“With Riley, like a lot of hitters, I just see an exhale when something good goes their way,” Hinch said. “When you get beat down a little bit, you’re grinding, you’re trying to alter something and make subtle adjustments. At the end of the day you need to see a hit.”
Greene’s first hit, the double in the fourth, fell just inside the foul line.
“That ball stayed fair; feels like last week it would’ve gone foul,” Hinch said. “Now it’s fair and there is a collective exhale and there’s a big joke and laughter in the dugout again. He’s just relaxed that he did something right. Now he can just play.”
Perez had a single, double, triple, two stolen bases and an RBI. McKinstry ended up with four RBI. Andy Ibanez came off the bench and delivered an RBI single off a lefty and a double off a righty.
“We were bound to hit a good stretch again,” Carpenter said. “We’ve got a lot of amazing players on this team, especially the hitter group. It’s pretty awesome and I love being a part of it. I’m glad we got back to putting really good at-bats together.”
But save a game ball for lefty Brant Hurter. It was a very different ballgame when he took over for Mize in the second inning. He not only stranded two runners in the second, he then hung three straight zeros on the scoreboard, allowing one infield hit with three strikeouts.
“Hurter saved the day,” Hinch said. “Just in terms of getting us to the middle part of the game.”
From losing 12 of 13 to winning three in a row. Baseball, right?
“Perspective goes a long way,” Hinch said. “Similar to how I described Riley, I think the team needs some success and feel good when they go home at night. That series of games was just a small snippet of the season. What do you believe, the first 90 or so games or a 10- to 14-game stretch? As players and coaches and managers, we’re built to run the full marathon.
“But it is hard sometimes and it’s good to see the boys celebrate and feel good about winning a series.”
@cmccosky
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