PITTSBURGH – The Detroit Tigers miss Riley Greene, as anyone who is breathing will tell you – including manager A.J. Hinch, who feels the left-fielder's absence as he makes his lineup card out every day.
“You notice it because he’s a tremendous player and because he plays every single day,” Hinch said Monday, Aug. 17, “he’s a mainstay in the middle of our order. He’s definitely missed. Like a lot of teams, when you lose a mainstay, you feel it.”
The loss is even more acute, he pointed out, when the Tigers face a string of right-handed starters, as they will at PNC Park on Monday-Wednesday. Greene doesn’t just provide power, he provides protection as a lefty. His absence isn’t why Kevin McGonigle and Dillon Dingler have been scuffling lately – especially Dingler, who went 1-for-34 before doubling against the White Sox on Sunday.
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Both started searching before Greene went down with a hamstring strain. And while it’s not ideal for the Tigers’ offense – or any offense – to lose its cleanup hitter and for its table setters to go into a slump, the downturn and injury isn’t why they got swept by Chicago.
Starting pitching was.
Consider that the Tigers scored 13 runs in each of their last three series, all three games each. They went 2-1 (San Francisco), 2-1 (Cleveland) and 0-3 (Chicago). In other words, they averaged a tick over four runs a game for three consecutive series and won two series and got humbled in the third.
Yes, that’s starting pitching, and the starting pitching is what will determine where this group of relative youngsters goes as the season eases into the fall. The offense is solid now, has been for a while now, and will continue to be if many of the youngsters keep doing what they’ve been doing.
Also, Dingler and McGonigle will find their way back from their mini struggles at the plate, and eventually Greene will return. The playoff chase will more likely come down to whether Jackson Jobe can throw his fastball on the edges of the strike zone and command his curveball.
Or whether Troy Melton can rediscover the feel for his pitches, which he has talked about missing slightly. And whether Framber Valdez can rediscover some consistency and whether Keider Montero can continue his.
The Tigers had chances to beat the White Sox in two of the three games, and it’s easy to say they were one swing away from doing that at least once, and perhaps twice.
They were one pitch away from keeping Chicago from home plate; the rotation has to get back to what it’s been for the Tigers to put pressure on the White Sox once again in the American League Central and to stay in the thick of the AL wild-card chase.
Two of the Tigers’ most talented young pitchers fell off against the White Sox. That was the story. Now they’ve got to find their way back.
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Without Riley Greene, Tigers need young starting pitching to step up