When Justin Verlander was carving up baseball in 2011, he was scarfing down Taco Bell: three crunchy taco supremes (no tomato), a cheesy gordita crunch and a Mexican pizza (no tomato) the night before each one of his starts. Great minds Think Outside The Bun: After Spencer Torkelson homered twice to lift the Tigers over the Twins on Wednesday, he told Riley Greene he had eaten Taco Bell.
"So I ordered it," said Greene, who then homered to lift the Tigers over the Twins on Thursday. "Just kind of a superstition thing."
And what exactly did he order?
"I don’t even know, I ordered a lot. A lot of Doritos Locos Tacos," said Greene, who didn't say whether he had passed on the tomatoes. He did, however, pull a Taco Bell cap out of his locker and put it on for show. Greene's show is just beginning.
It is not too early to say the Tigers have a star on their hands. At 22 years old, Greene is already the best player in Detroit's clubhouse and one of the best young players in baseball. In the sixth inning of a scoreless game Thursday against the Twins, Greene took a down-and-in slider for a strike from Kenta Maeda, whiffed on another -- "missed over it by like a foot," he said -- and then prepared himself for a third.
"I told myself, I’m going to keep the same path," said Greene. "Then he threw it and I went down to get it."
The ball didn't land until it had sailed the seats to the right of the batter's eye and nearly banged off the bricks that bear Jackie Robinson's No. 42. It didn't land until it had traveled 453 feet, the longest home run of Greene's young career and the longest home run at Comerica Park hit by any Tiger not named Miguel Cabrera or J.D. Martinez in the Statcast era. It didn't land until it had given the Tigers the lead and ultimately the series over their AL Central rivals.
The division might have to get used to this. Greene, who's hitting .301 with an .839 OPS this season, is hitting .338 with a 1.043 OPS against the AL Central. The Tigers are 15-6 against their division rivals with Greene in the lineup, 6-7 without him. He stared back at reliever Jhoan Durán in his final at-bat against the Twins this week, rising star on rising star, and slapped a 100 mph fastball down the left field line for a double. Lest he leave any doubt.
"He’s limber and strong and young and twitchy. I miss those days," A.J. Hinch said with a smile. "But I think for him, just the good, hard barrel contact is something that we’re getting used to, and we’re going to see him grow into even more power. I marvel about Riley for a lot of reasons, that can be one of them."
The Tigers' worst month of baseball this season -- 9-18 in June -- came with Greene on the shelf due to a leg injury. They have a winning record since his return. He is that important to this team. He's even more important to this organization, which hasn't drafted and developed a star position player since Curtis Granderson. The fifth overall pick in 2019, Greene is well on his way to changing that. A long-term extension could be in the offing this winter.
Greene doesn't yet qualify on the leaderboards this season, but consider this. Among players 22 or younger (min. 300 plate appearances), Greene is first in wRC+ (135). And among players 23 or younger. Among players 24 or younger, he's third -- behind Juan Soto and (gulp) Isaac Paredes. Among players 25 or younger, he's sixth, directly between Bo Bichette and Corbin Carroll.
And don't look now, but Greene has an outside shot at catching Bichette in the race for the American League batting title once he accrues the requisite plate appearances. Bichette sits at .321. Greene checks in at .301, and you get the sense he's heating up again after a cool start to the month. He's second to Bichette, by the way, among players 25 or younger this season in line drive rate.
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In the Tigers clubhouse, Matthew Boyd is a good source for perspective. He's thrown hundreds of innings and faced thousands of batters in the bigs. A lot of those batters probably blend together. On Thursday, he was asked what makes Greene stand out.
"One thing that makes his ability amazing, at a young age he’s competing against left-handers," said Boyd. "Even in facing him last year, he doesn’t give anything up. He puts a good at-bat together regardless of what’s going on, and now he’s putting the barrel on the ball more than ever, too. His in-at-bat, in-game adjustments are really, really impressive."
Greene ranked in the 60th percentile of MLB hitters last season in barrel rate. He ranks in the 79th percentile this season. He ranks in the 89th percentile in both average exit velo and hard-hit rate. Further to Boyd's point, the lefty-hitting Greene is batting .307 against left-handed pitchers this season, .304 for his career. Which comes as no surprise: he got two hits off lefties in his MLB debut.
"Regardless of who’s on the mound, whether it’s a flamethrower, a lefty, a sinkerballer, whatever, he can hit a ball down the line for a double and then he can also go to the opposite field and then he can do that and hit it off the bricks," said Boyd. "It just speaks to how complete he is in that sense, that he can really do it all."
Greene is still plagued by strikeouts, which tend to come in bunches. And his ground-ball rate is still higher than he'd like. But again, he's made progress in both departments from last season. He covers all fields when he puts the ball in play, and he has speed on the bases. And with Green's fearless, if not always flawless defense in center, the Detroit Tigers boast one of the best building blocks in baseball.
"He wants to be perfect and wants to be the guy in the middle of the lineup," said Hinch.
More and more, month by month, Greene is becoming that guy. The Tigers have work to do around him, but look around them: the AL Central is and will be anyone's division. Greene is the best reason to believe it might belong again to Detroit.
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