Detroit Tigers Newsletter: What history tells us about Spencer Torkelson's slow start
Three feet.
That’s about all that kept the only two Detroit Tigers who arrived at Comerica Park on Sunday with at least 100 plate appearances this season and no home runs from returning Monday free from that leaden cloud, 40 games into the 2024 season.
Well, one of them is free, at least: Spencer Torkelson, in perhaps the most pressure-free at-bat of his season so far, sent a ninth-inning semi-breaking ball screaming at 109 mph — fast enough to merge onto the Lodge without hitting the gas — into the left-field stands in the ninth inning.
The other? Colt Keith, who jumped on a Justin Verlander fastball in the second inning and sent it 103.8 mph — taking the service drive, we guess —to the right-center gap, only to watch it land in an outfielder’s glove, 383 feet away, and maybe a yard short of the seats.
Hello, and welcome to the Power Outage Newsletter!
Look, even the most pessimistic projections didn’t have Keith and Torkelson going a quarter of the season with just one home run between them — or that home run coming on May 12. (Then again, we’ll point out that Tork alone has as many home runs as Jose Abreu, Alex Bregman and Anthony Rendon combined, and they’re getting roughly $88.5 million combined from the Astros and Angels — it could be worse.)
Torkelson, for his part, has suggested he knows what the problem is, telling the Freep’s Evan Petzold, “Every player goes through a time where their swing feels off or their timing isn't right, so it's how quickly can you get back to it?"
Keith, meanwhile, has seen his judgment of Comerica Park go from rookie-level to Miguel-Cabrera-after-an-0-for-8-game in just a quarter of the season, judging from his review of the park following his warning-track shot: “That's over the road in Erie, bro," Keith told reporters Sunday, referencing his previous two homefields in the Tigers organization. "That's out of the stadium in Toledo. I don't know. I got to hit my homers on the road. It's a big park." (Nobody tell him about the old fences, OK?)
So what’s next for the two kinda-sluggers?
The good news for Keith: The Tigers have just three more games at home this week, followed by a six-game road trip. The bad news? That trip features stops in Arizona and Kansas City, where — according to Statcast’s calculations — exactly zero of Keith’s hard-hit balls would have cleared the fences.
Torkelson, perhaps the only grownup having a worse April and May than Drake listening to a Kendrick Lamar track, has gone from a “Three True Outcomes” dream — with a myriad of homers (31), walks (67) and, yes, strikeouts (171) — to the “Three Tork Outcomes”: Strikeout, double and second strikeout.
Maybe that’s a bit harsh; Tork is at least tied for the American League lead in doubles (13) and on pace for 52 two-baggers this season. But he’s also on pace for just four homers. Torkelson, of course, already got some good news Sunday. As he told reporters, “To break the seal, definitely felt good.”
But will he return to his homer-hitting ways or stick with the doubles? Or both? Just three MLB hitters since World War II have topped 50 doubles with fewer than five homers: Wade Boggs in 1989, Mark Grudzielanek in 1997 and Brian Roberts in 2004. And, more on topic to this here Newsletter, just six Tigers since World War II have opened the season —through 39 games, that is — with at least 10 doubles and no homers.
Here’s how the rest of their seasons went:
1949: George Kell — 10: Well, it’s always interesting to start with a Hall of Famer, albeit one known more for his contact skills (a.306 batting average and .367 OBP over his 15 seasons) than his power (78 homers). And indeed, the third baseman opened the ’49 season hitting .338 with 20 walks and two strikeouts. His doubles pace cooled off a bit —38 at season’s end — while he finished with three homers (with homer No. 1 coming in the Tigers’ Game 43) and an MLB-leading .343 average, an All-Star nod and an eighth-place finish in MVP voting.
1950: Johnny Lipon — 10: This shortstop was similarly power-challenged — he entered 1950, his age-27 season, with eight homers over parts of four full seasons (with three years canceled by World War II) — but hit .314 with a .432 OBP over the first 39 games. The rest of the season was slightly less impressive, as he hit two homers — five days apart, on Sept. 24 and 28 — while posting a .286/.357/.355 slash line over the Tigers’ final 108 games.
1997: Deivi Cruz — 10: The 24-year-old’s rookie season began with an incredibly power-free stretch in which he paired 12 singles with his 10 doubles, for a .294 slugging percentage. The rest of the season was only moderately better: 16 doubles and two homers (with No. 1 in the Tigers’ 54th game) en route to a .321 slugging percentage. He still finished fourth in AL Rookie of the Year voting and 25th in the MVP vote, with one point less than Hall of Famer Derek Jeter and one more than Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera. It was a different time.
2015: Ian Kinsler — 10: The most previously accomplished hitter on this list, with four All-Star nods and 173 homers over nine big-league seasons (including two 30-homer campaigns) entering ’15, his second season in Detroit started with a slow burn —a .318/.389/.409 slash line — and closed with a flash; he hit his first homer in the Tigers’ 51st game and wound up with 11 round-trippers on the season.
1952: Jerry Priddy — 13: At 32, his career was nearing its end, especially after posting a .698 OPS in full-time work at second base the season before (his second with the Tigers). After opening ’52 with a .740 OPS, he appeared in just 36 more games — with four homers (the first in Game 44 for Detroit), 10 more doubles and an .879 OPS — before breaking his leg and dislocating his ankle sliding home in early July to end his season.
2009: Placido Polanco — 13: The final season as a Tiger for Polanco — the 2006 ALCS MVP — opened with a .265/.313/.364 slash line. The then-33-year-old closed it with 10 homers (with No. 1 in the 45th game for the Tigers), 18 doubles and three triples to nab a ninth-place AL MVP vote (and a 25th-place finish) with a .285/.331/.396 slash line.
It’s not a perfect analysis; only one of the six were proven home-run hitters. But only two managed double-digit homers over the final 120 games of their seasons, which doesn’t exactly bode well for Tork this season.
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Mound masters
Then again, it wasn’t all about the hitters over the weekend at the CoPa, with Sunday and Saturday featuring the past and future Tigers aces, respectively: Saturday saw Tarik Skubal give up two runs over 6⅓ innings, in his sixth straight start with two or fewer earned runs; Sunday was Justin Verlander’s time to shine, with no runs allowed over seven innings. It was, as the Freep’s Jeff Seidel noted, like the Tigers were facing the ghosts of aces past with J.V. on the mound. And yet, that doesn’t mean Skubal is the next J.V., wrote Our Man Petzold — he’s just the next ace for a franchise that has gone without for a while.
(And hey, while we’ve got you in town, J.V. — any thoughts of coming back for a final run in the Old English “D,” or whatever City Connect outfit is in fashion by then? “As far as signing with the Tigers and coming back here, that's fate,” Verlander told Our Man Petzold. “I don't know. That's something that's out of my control. It's an unanswerable question.”)
‘Mama Flare’
While Verlander was wearing an unfamiliar orange, his counterpart on the Tigers, Jack Flaherty, was decked out in the traditional Tigers livery with some non-traditional pink highlights, part of MLB’s Mother’s Day tribute. But Flaherty paid tribute to his mom, Eileen Flaherty, in a talk with Our Man Seidel before that, noting: “She's the strongest person I know. Just so impressive. She gave us so much time.”
Gear up
Oh, and those City Connect outfits the Tigers wore on Friday and Saturday? Well, we won’t go too much into them here … since we spent the week doing that. Simply put, as you debate whether to drop $175 on a new look: The Tigers like them, fans are split and yours truly has them in the bottom third of the 24 kits — 25 as of Sunday night! — released.
Mark your calendar!
The City Connect gear won’t make an appearance until the Tigers’ next Friday night game (May 24, against the Blue Jays), though; tonight, the Tigers will be back to their normal home gear (without the pink, either). But they’ll have a bit of a different look, with Matt Manning taking the mound around 6:40 p.m. in place of Kenta Maeda, who hit the IL over the weekend (retroactive to Wednesday). Maeda, meanwhile, is likely to miss at least two starts, according to Our Man Petzold, as he recovers from the viral illness that made its way around the clubhouse (in Cleveland and Detroit) last week.
3 to watch
Manning’s trip north from Toledo is just one of the several I-75 Shuttle moves to keep an eye on this week:
Akil Baaaaddddddoooooooo*: His mechanical changes paid off Sunday in his 2024 big-league debut.
Parker Meadows: The rookie center fielder was sent down Tuesday; he’s 4-for-21 since.
Gio Urshela: The third baseman is getting some rehab work in the field in Toledo.
*Your spelling may vary.
Happy birthday, Skip!
Tigers manager A.J. Hinch (who hit three homers over 82 appearances — one every 27.3 PAs — in his 2003 season as a Tiger, and 29 in his 993 other PAs — 34.2 PAs per homer) turns 50 on Wednesday. This is a bit of an early birthday card, so we can only note that he enters the week with 241 wins with the Tigers (20 this season!), putting him 14th in franchise history. Next up: Billy Martin, at 248; Red Rolfe, at 278; and Brad Ausmus, at 314. (On the other side: Hinch’s 285 losses are 11th in franchise history, 15 behind Alan Trammell and 47 behind Ausmus.)
Other Tigers birthdays this week: Kody Clemens (28 on Wednesday), Jack Morris (69 on Thursday), Billy Martin (would have been 96 on Thursday; died in 1989), Carlos Peña (46 on Friday), Ozzie Virgil (92 on Friday), Joakim Soria (40 on Saturday), Brandon Inge (47 on Sunday).
TL;DR
Now, we’d never suggest a playlist for the Tigers, but hopefully new organist Dave Calendine — who’ll be working weekend home games this season, according to Our Man Petzold — was able to lay down a few birthday recordings for Hinch during his debut Friday.
Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on X (which used to be Twitter, y’know?) @theford.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers Newsletter: Will Spencer Torkelson rediscover his HRs
