{"id":50040,"date":"2025-05-24T01:40:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T01:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/50040\/"},"modified":"2025-05-24T01:40:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T01:40:12","slug":"detroit-getting-key-weapon-back-ahead-of-guardians-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/50040\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroit getting key weapon back ahead of Guardians clash"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Tigers<\/a> lost their season opener against the Cleveland Guardians 7-0 on Thursday. The matchup between the leaders in the American League Central division got off to a bad start for Detroit<\/a>. However, AJ Hinch will have Matt Vierling at his disposal for the first time this season in the second game. The 28-year-old outfielder was taken off of the team’s injured list before Friday’s game.<\/p>\n

Vierling’s return comes against the same opponent the Tigers played the last time he was on the field. The outfielder went 0-for-10 over the last two games of Detroit’s season, both losses to the Guardians in the ALDS. Now, he is back<\/a> to face Cleveland again after recovering from a strained rotator cuff, according to MLive Media Groups’ Evan Woodberry.<\/p>\n

Hinch will put Vierling back in right field once he settles back in alongside Riley Greene and Javier Baez<\/a>. However, Detroit hopes that Vierling can continue to provide consistency in the middle of their order.<\/p>\n

In two years the Tigers, Vierling hit better than .250 and hit 10 home runs in each season. Baez, Greene, and the rest of Detroit’s offense has been a good group, but Hinch has a chance to make it even better.<\/p>\n

Related Detroit Tigers NewsArticle continues below<\/p>\n

Even without Vierling for the first part of the season, the Tigers haven’t skipped a beat. They were a surprising team last season, but experts now have Detroit amongst the best teams in Major League Baseball<\/a>. The Tigers have had one of the best records in the league and sit five games clear of the Guardians, Kansas City Royals, and Minnesota Twins heading into Friday’s game.<\/p>\n

Expectations are high for Hinch and his team, but Vierling’s return is a big plus. Detroit awaits the return of Parker Meadows, the last starter who remains on the IL. For now, Baez continues to excel in the outfield<\/a> and as the Tigers continue their dominant season.<\/p>\n

After losing to a division rival in the ALDS in 2024, Detroit has their eyes on another deep playoff run. If Vierling’s return helps to rally the troops, the team has a chance to win their first championship in more than 40 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Tigers lost their season opener against the Cleveland Guardians 7-0 on Thursday. The matchup between the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[3193,5,135,51,2565,53,538,1329,4,3410],"class_list":{"0":"post-50040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-aj-hinch","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-guardians","12":"tag-clevelandguardians","13":"tag-detroit-tigers","14":"tag-guardians","15":"tag-javier-baez","16":"tag-mlb","17":"tag-mlb-injury"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114560266208134962","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}