Torkelson in good head space despite another frosty start at plate
>> This isn’t uncharted territory for Spencer Torkelson. He’s been here before.
Remember last year? He was hitting .198 on May 3 with just two home runs. He ended up hitting a career-high 31 homers and knocking in 94 runs. So here we are, it’s only April 16 and again, he’s off to a slow start. The numbers would suggest he’s off to a colder start than a year ago.
He went into the game Tuesday hitting .219 and slugging just .297. He’s put 41 balls in play and had just one barrel recorded by Statcast. The average exit velocity on balls he’s put in play is 83.6 mph, in the bottom 6 percentile. His 22% hardhit rate ranks in the bottom 3 percentile.
But guess what? Torkelson feels like he’s in a much better place right now that last year.
“I feel fine,” he said. “It’s definitely not clicking yet, but I think it’s giving me more confidence for when I do start fully clicking. Like, I’m doing this right now, it’s not pretty but it’s serviceable for me right now. We’re just finding a way and it’s going to come.”
Finding a way. Like in one-run game Monday night, he got into a couple two-strike counts against former Tiger Michael Lorenzen and worked walks. Like Sunday, when the Tigers were getting stuffed by Twins’ pitching, he led off the seventh inning with a double to the wall in left and then singled in a run in the four-run eighth. Like a walk and two singles Friday, triggering the Tigers’ 8-2 win over the Twins.
“I feel like in years past, I’d feel just out of the fight,” Torkelson said. “This year, I’m right in there.”
That’s a huge mental distinction for a hitter. There is no sense of or fear of defeat when he steps into the box.
“He has had some encouraging signs the last couple of days,” manager AJ Hinch said. “I thought his discipline (Monday night) was good. He’s understanding his at-bats a little bit better. You’re not always going to get the pitch to hit and drive. You have to defend a lot of different things, whether it’s the situation of the game, the stuff of the pitcher and the discipline to lay off certain things.”
Pitchers have been pitching Torkelson away a lot. They will move him off the plate with something firm inside or a back-foot breaking ball, but the intent is to
get him lunging at something out away from the plate. That’s part of the reason he’s hit so many soft popups and fly balls.
Against Lorenzen, though, he didn’t bite.
“I saw that a lot last year, too,” Torkelson said. “But it was more hard stuff and it would leak over the middle. The last couple of games, they’ve been executing better. But yesterday was the first time for me where I was like, I’m not going to give in. I’m going to stick to my approach and my plan. And it turned into two walks.
“In those early 0-2 counts, those pitches weren’t good pitches to do damage on. So, just trust myself, lay off and make them come in.”
Hinch has been toying with the idea of giving Torkelson a day off. The better at-bats Monday made him put that off.
“It’s good to hear that mentally he’s in a better place,” Hinch said. “Because there is so much attention on him from where I hit him in the order and what his expectations are for himself. Just when I think I’m going to get him out of the lineup and give him a breather, he’ll battle a little bit extra and get a couple of hits or draw a couple of walks.
“You don’t want to break his rhythm when he’s doing it that way. We clearly need him to be a force in the lineup and he will be.”
Take a breath
Colt Keith has been stoic throughout this rookie season, not showing much emotion on good days or bad days. It was different Monday. Keith’s frustration over an 0-for-4 night was clear and concerning to Hinch.
It’s partly why he decided to give Keith a day out of the starting lineup.
“Just watching him, his mannerisms and his body language,” Hinch said. “He’s not far off because a couple of days ago he got the big hit. But he’s had a hard time putting together consistent
at-bats that he normally does. I sensed a little more frustration. I could be completely wrong. I didn’t talk to him, just walked by him in the clubhouse and told him he was off.”
Keith talked over the weekend about finally feeling locked in at the plate. And then he went hitless in his last 12 at-bats. Baseball.
“He deserves a mental break and a physical break,” Hinch said. “He holds himself to such a high bar. Even though he’s contributed in the majority of games he’s played, the scoreboard numbers don’t often indicate that. I just think this was an important day (to give him off) based on his frustration level last night.”
Tough self-critique
Riley Greene made the play of the night (at least from the Tigers’ perspective), throwing out Jared Walsh at home trying to tag and score from third base in the fifth inning Monday. It was his first career outfield assist on a play at the plate and he fired a 90-mph, onehop strike to catcher Carson Kelly.
“It doesn’t happen often for Riley,” he said before the game Tuesday. “So I was excited about it.”
Greene is confident about most parts of his game. His arm strength, not so much.
“I would say I have a below-average arm,” he said. “I just throw it to the right spot and I was close. Listen, I’m going to one-hop my target with the best of them. That’s what I’m going to do. And I’m going to hit the cut with the best of them. That’s the goal.”
Hinch wasn’t accepting Greene’s self-assessment.
“Well, he’s not a scout,” Hinch said. “But he tries to play one, apparently. I think his arm is pretty good.”
Here’s another defensive nugget about Greene. According to Sports Info Solutions, entering play Tuesday, Greene’s plus-6 defensive runs saved was tops among Major League defenders, regardless of position.