{"id":672044,"date":"2026-04-10T00:45:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T00:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/672044\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T00:45:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T00:45:30","slug":"tigers-a-j-hinch-announces-parker-meadows-update-after-leaving-twins-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/672044\/","title":{"rendered":"Tigers’ A.J. Hinch Announces Parker Meadows Update After Leaving Twins Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Tigers<\/a>‘ 2026 campaign is off to a dreadful start, as the preseason favorites to win the American League Central will enter Friday with a 4-9 record over their first thirteen games of the season. After opening the season with back-to-back wins against the San Diego Padres<\/a>, the Tigers have gone just 2-9 since then.<\/p>\n

With the Tigers’ 3-1 loss to the Minnesota Twins<\/a> on Thursday, they are now in the midst of a five-game losing streak. More important than the loss, however, is that center fielder Parker Meadows had to be carted off of the field in the 8th inning after a head-on collision with left fielder Riley Greene.<\/p>\n

After the game, Tigers manager A.J. Hinch provided an update on Meadows, explaining that he would remain in Minneapolis overnight for observation at a hospital.<\/p>\n

Hinch said the issues stemmed from Meadows biting his lip or the inside of his mouth during the collision and noted that he was briefly out of it. \u201cObviously we\u2019re going to get him checked out for everything, but this one worries me,\u201d Hinch said (h\/t Jason Beck of MLB<\/a>.com).<\/p>\n

It’s upsetting albeit unsurprising news for the 26-year-old Meadows and the Tigers, as the severity of the collision was immediately apparent when the medical staff opted to have Meadows carted off the field. Meadows and Greene were both chasing after a fly ball off the bat of Josh Bell; Meadows didn’t notice Greene until it was already too late and slammed face-first into the back of Greene’s head.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, Greene still managed to hold onto the ball and had no apparent injuries as he stayed in the game. But Meadows was not as fortunate, and now he will almost certainly go on the injured list with a concussion.<\/p>\n

Historically, Meadows’ value has come from his excellent center field defense, where he has a career 13 Outs Above Average (h\/t Fangraphs)<\/a> over parts of four seasons. This season, however, Meadows was off to a nice start at the plate: through 36 plate appearances, the left-handed hitting center fielder had a .273 batting average and a 110 OPS+ along with three stolen bases.<\/p>\n

Meadows’ defense is strong enough that he was able to earn a spot in the Tigers’ starting lineup even without a history of consistent production at the plate, but his strong start this season was a welcome surprise.<\/p>\n

Now, the Tigers must dip into their versatility earlier in the season than they would like; after Meadows exited the game, shortstop Javier Baez moved to center field and rookie Kevin Mcgonigle entered the game to take Baez’s place at short. Prior to that appearance, Baez had only appeared at shortstop this season, with McGonigle splitting time between short and third base.<\/p>\n

Most likely, Meadows’ injury will move Baez to center field full time. Utility man Matt Vierling could see more time there as well, considering that he already has two games logged at the position this season.<\/p>\n

Related: Tigers Make Move After Justin Verlander’s Injury<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Apr 9, 2026, where it first appeared in the MLB<\/a> section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Tigers‘ 2026 campaign is off to a dreadful start, as the preseason favorites to win the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[2082,18241,5,53,33574,1329,3541,1387,822,60,3190,4,1402,624,18,148],"class_list":{"0":"post-672044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-twins","8":"tag-a-j-hinch","9":"tag-american-league-central","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-detroit-tigers","12":"tag-jason-beck","13":"tag-javier-baez","14":"tag-josh-bell","15":"tag-matt-vierling","16":"tag-minnesota","17":"tag-minnesota-twins","18":"tag-minnesotatwins","19":"tag-mlb","20":"tag-parker-meadows","21":"tag-riley-greene","22":"tag-san-diego-padres","23":"tag-twins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116377650706502712","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672044","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=672044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}