Asked at the top of his interview Wednesday morning on 97.1 The Ticket how he's doing, A.J. Hinch cracked, "How do you think I am?" He departed it by saying, "It's going to be OK." In between, Hinch acknowledged everything that's gone wrong for the Tigers during their worst stretch of the season, including a slew of sloppy plays Tuesday night in Pittsburgh that led to their eighth loss in the last nine games.
"We’ve got to play better, obviously," Hinch said. "Man, it feels like forever ago when we won the series against Tampa at home. It’s been three series that we haven’t done enough to win, and I understand how that creates some stress, on a lot of levels. Last night was probably worthy of angst and frustration, just because of the way that we just mentally fatigued our way to some really poor baseball."
The Tigers committed three errors in their 8-5 loss to the Pirates in which they were down 5-0 after four innings. Casey Mize was hit hard for his second straight start. The bats didn't show signs of life until it was too late. The Tigers still have a 9.0-game lead over the Guardians in the AL Central thanks to their terrific start in an otherwise mediocre division, but Cleveland has gained 6.5 games in the last couple weeks. For the Tigers, 59-34 has become 60-42.
"It doesn’t define us, but we recognize this has not been a great stretch and we control that by bringing it today, salvaging a game," said Hinch. "There are a lot of teams that would trade places with us, maybe not the way that we got there in the last week to 10 days, but we have a good team. We will bounce out of this, and we definitely need to bounce out of this."
At the same time that their pitching staff has struggled, the Tigers' lineup has gone cold. The culprits are many: Colt Keith is 1-for-his-last 24 and hitless on this side of the All-Star Break, Zach McKinstry is 1-for-his-last-19, Wenceel Perez 2-for-his-last-16. Parker Meadows just can't seem to get going, while also playing below his standard in center field. The return of Kerry Carpenter, who started a rehab assignment Tuesday night after missing the past three weeks with a hamstring injury, should help.
"I think our players are carrying a little bit of that burden, like, I’m gonna be the guy, and do a little bit too much," said Hinch. "It’s not a lack of desire or effort or focus. We’ve just played poorly at some really bad times of some games, and now it’s piled up series after series."
In the middle of it all, Riley Greene is 3-for-21 since the All-Star Break with 10 strikeouts and one extra-base hit. Representing the tying run with two outs in the ninth inning Tuesday night, he struck out for the 135th time this season, most in the majors. He's on pace for the most strikeouts in franchise history.
"He’s trying to do too much," said Hinch. "He’s, like, the definition of the guy. He knows he’s in the middle of our order, he’s a featured player, he’s an All-Star, he hears about it. He wants to be the guy. We want him to be a complete hitter. We would never tell him, 'Hey, just sell out for home runs.' He does swing hard, he swings often, he has swung and missed a lot."
Hinch decided to give Greene a rest Wednesday in the series finale against the Pirates, "probably the mental reset needed for him after a really hectic last week with the All-Star Game and then he hasn’t really gotten off to a great start post-All-Star break."
"The over-swinging, the swinging at too many pitches, that signals to me that he’s just trying to do too much and ignite this offense," said Hinch. "He hit a homer on a first-pitch fastball (last week) down in Texas. I thought that might get him better. But when we see Riley Greene good, it’s not the sell-out, pull homer; those are majestic and cool and we’re reminded how good he is. But it’s more of a complete hitter who’s getting hits along the way as well."
The Tigers' slide has only heightened the need for upgrades ahead of the July 31 trade deadline. Hinch knows it, and is looking forward to what Scott Harris might do. He also knows that "we have our hands full on a lot of things that we need to deal with that don’t involve the trade deadline."
"We know it’s there, everybody knows it," he said. "(The players) get asked about it every day by the media. We try not to talk about it a ton because it’s out of our control on the field. We do want the front office to look into different things, and they’re going to. They’re going to do their part to try to make this team better.
"We need to make this team better on the field, and the execution issues are front and center more than the headlines and rumors and curiosity. I don’t want that to bleed into these players wondering if they’re going to be a part of it. That’s a hard task this time of year with the volume of attention that the deadline brings, but it’s the fastest way to be bad."
Right now, the Tigers are trying to get back to being good.