PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Riley Greene is itching to get going.
It’s been a slow start for the center fielder, who underwent Tommy John surgery on his right elbow last September. The hits have come in clusters, and though he’s batting .333 so far this spring, there’s still one aspect of the game that eludes Greene: the home run.
“Been working on it; trying to fight some demons away from the past couple weeks,” Greene said. “Trying to get the ball in the air is my goal. I’m [freaking] tired of hitting the ball on the ground.”
“[We] try to keep it in perspective,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “Like, these guys want to be perfect. Obviously, he knows he’s got to get the ball in the air. But you’ve got to get a good pitch. So I’m not stressing about it.
“I want him to get a good pitch to hit [and] hit it hard. And when it goes on the ground, it goes on the ground. When it goes in the air, it goes a long way. … I’m certainly not going to obsess over it at this point.”
Greene will continue to work. He added two hits — including a double to the right-field corner — in the Tigers’ 3-2 win over the Mets at Clover Park on Sunday afternoon. And he has the tools to get the ball in the air. It’s just a matter of putting the pieces together so that he’s in a successful groove before the regular season starts in two and a half weeks.
“I feel like I’m always trying to get timing,” Greene said. “Just trying to find a groove … trying to find it and trying to find your cues and everything, because as you go four months without hitting, and you have to come back here. So just trying to find all the things that I had during the season last year.”
Putting the Hurt[er] on
He may have been reassigned to Minor League camp a few days ago, but that didn’t stop Brant Hurter from flexing his stuff vs. New York on Sunday.
Hurter stepped into Tarik Skubal’s spot in the rotation for the day, as the Tigers want to keep the Mets — who Skubal will likely face in his second start of the regular season — from getting a good look at the lefty.
Hurter, who is ranked as the Tigers’ No. 16 prospect by MLB Pipeline, allowed just one run on two hits over three innings, striking out one and hitting one batter. The lone run Hurter surrendered was on a solo homer to Mets third baseman Mark Vientos.
“I [threw] a lot of changeups for balls today, so I was getting behind a little bit, but everything felt good so I was happy with it,” said Hurter, who is set to play for Detroit in the inaugural Spring Breakout game on Saturday.
Hurter helped lead Double-A Erie to the Eastern League championship last year, posting a 3.28 ERA with 133 strikeouts over 26 starts in just his second professional season. His 10.14 K/9 rate in 2023 stands out, as does his strikeout-to-walk ratio (4.03).
But Hurter is not satisfied yet — and rightfully so. His focus is on getting that changeup more in the zone by getting more reps with it. That’s part of why he threw it for almost a third of his pitches vs. the Mets.
“I’m doing a new grip too, so it’s a little bit with that,” Hurter said. “But yeah, it’s repetition and more like setting my sights on certain time parts of the catcher. … I need to get more depth on it. It was basically the same as my sinker but like maybe six mph softer. So I needed a more separated pitch.”