2 weeks Ago
MILWAUKEE — As his teammates drifted into the shower area or packed their bags or went back to the kitchen for some food after the 5-1 get-away-day loss to the Brewers on Wednesday, Riley Greene sat forlornly staring into his locker as if it were an abyss.Related ArticlesTigers get one-hit in punchless, 5-0 loss to Brewers‘You just gotta play better’: At Toledo, aspiring Tigers are ticked, motivatedSkubal shines as Tigers win 9-1 to hand Brewers their 3rd straight lossTigers drop series finale as Twins cash in on 2 mistakes from Casey MizeTigers’ Riley Greene taking proactive measures to shed injury-prone reputation“It’s a vicious sport when you are chasing something,” manager AJ Hinch said. “And I’m seeing it pile up on him a little bit.
”The Tigers’ offense has gone suddenly quiet as Greene works to extricate himself from a 1-for-31 skid, with 19 strikeouts over the last nine games. It’s not a direct cause and effect, of course. But it probably feels that way to Greene right now.
“I know he’s carrying the weight of the last at-bat into the next at-bat,” Hinch said. “And when you are going through these stretches, everybody looks for solutions and you have a lot of people in your ear. We’re just trying to grind him through this a little bit and get him swinging at better pitches.
”That’s been the frustrating part for Greene. He’s missing pitches right now that he normally whacks. On Tuesday night he took a called third strike, frozen with a runner at third and one out.
Wednesday against veteran lefty Jose Quintana, he came up with two on and two outs in the first. Quintana had walked three hitters in the inning.Greene swung at the first pitch, a 90-mph sinker, middle-in — one of his sweet spots — and he rolled it over to first base.
“Offensively the last couple of games, we haven’t done a lot,” Hinch said, broadening the focus beyond Greene’s struggles. “When teams start to go multiple innings in a row without scoring, you see everybody trying to do a little too much with their at-bats.”When Spencer Torkelson stepped in with one out in the sixth, the Tigers had gone 18 straight innings without a run dating to the fifth inning Monday.
During that drought, they mustered five hits, six walks with 20 strikeouts. They were 0 for 11 with runners in scoring position.Torkelson ended that, swatting a 395-foot missile over the wall in right-center off Quintana.
It was his sixth homer of the year. That was the lone marker. They managed only four hits off the 36-year-old Quintana in 5.
2 innings.“He comes in and gives you what you expect, a good quality start,” said Tigers catcher Tomas Nido, Quintana’s former teammate with the Mets. “He goes out there and says, ‘Let’s go to battle.
’ He did what Quintana does. ..
. He throws strikes and pitches to contact and puts hitters in an uncomfortable position to make decisions.“It’s the way he’s been doing it for 14 years.
”The other side of this coin was the performance of Tigers’ right-hander Keider Montero, who continues to be a tease.You see the high-revolution spin on both his slider and knuckle-curve and the crisscrossing action with his four-seam fastball and sinker, you see the ugly swings and strikeouts.And then you look up at the scoreboard and he’s allowed four runs in three innings.
“He did some good things where he looked pretty sharp,” Hinch said. “And all of his pitches were working. And there were times he couldn’t keep the ball in the ballpark.
This is an offensive ballpark, he made some mistakes and they made him pay.”Montero was officially called up from Triple-A Toledo before the game, giving the Tigers a temporary six-man rotation as they slog through a 23-game, 24-day patch of the schedule.And he was impressive, at least analytically.
The metrics on his slider and knuckle-curve were elite.The slider, which got seven whiffs on 12 swings, had an average spin rate of 2,740 rpm with 11 inches of horizontal break (and 3 inches of vertical break).Milwaukee Brewers’ Rhys Hoskins reacts after his home run against the Detroit Tigers during the third inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, April 16, 2025, in Milwaukee.
(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)The six knuckle-curves he threw, which got three called strikes and one whiff, had a 2,913-rpm spin rate and surpassed 3,000, with 12 inches of vertical movement and 13 inches of horizontal.Ridiculous movement profiles.“He started off really good,” Nido said.
“I thought we used his pitches really well. Just wish we could take a couple of those pitches back.”Montero had eight strikeouts in five innings, including punching out the heart of the Brewers’ order in the fifth (Jackson Chourio, Christian Yelich and William Contreras).
But he also gave up three home runs and a triple and left the game with the Tigers in the four-run hole.First of all, I am grateful to be here and for getting this opportunity,” Montero said through interpreter Carlos Guillen. “I did some good stuff, but I also left some pitches right in the middle of the plate.
And like I’ve always said, if you have a mistake and leave the ball right in the middle, they will make you pay.”Yelich and Rhys Hoskins homered in a three-run third inning. In both, Montero left pitches in the heart of the strike zone, a changeup to Yelich and a four-seamer to Hoskins.
Hoskins was 6 for 10 with two homers in the series.Even though lefty Brant Hurter was warm in the bullpen, Hinch sent Montero back out for the sixth. He gave up a solo home run to lefty Sal Frelick on another mislocated changeup and departed one batter later.
Feast or famine for Montero, straight famine for the offense.“We just haven’t had consistent at-bats back to back to back and then delivering the big punch like we have for most of the season,” Hinch said. “We need to reset, go home against a division opponent (Kansas City Royals) we know well.
This is the first series we’ve lost in a while, so we will wash this off, get back home and get to better times.”Same for Greene.“He’s one good day from erasing a lot of this,” Hinch said.
The Tigers (10-8) had won four straight series. They return to Comerica Park on Thursday for a four-game set with the Royals..
