The Tigers have sorely missed Riley Greene the first month of the season. They won't have him back anytime soon.
As Detroit searches for better defense in center and more punch in a struggling lineup, Greene remains in Lakeland rehabbing a fractured foot that will leave him sidelined for at least another month.
"It’s a slow heal," A.J. Hinch said Wednesday on the Stoney & Jansen Show. "We knew the bone that he broke on the bottom of his foot is one of the hardest bones to heal because of the lack of blood flow to the foot. So it’s slow. He’s out of the boot doing activities, we’re going to start to ramp him up. Timetables, who knows, but we’ve gotta get him into baseball activities."
Hinch said Greene is walking on his injured right foot, but has yet to start running. The Tigers are erring on the side of caution with one of their top prospects, who was poised to be the club's everyday center fielder before landing on the injured list late in spring training. He's a little more than four weeks into at least an eight-week recovery. So as much as the Tigers could use him, Greene's MLB debut is still a ways away.
"Not this month, just to be brutally honest," said Hinch. "It’s not going to be May. We’ll continue to have him heal."
On the brighter side, Hinch did say the Tigers "hope to see (Matt) Manning and (Casey) Mize at some point this month" as they recover from arm injuries. Detroit needs all the pitching it can get as it starts a stretch of 30 games in the next 28 days, including three doubleheaders. The club has one off-day between now and June 6th.
"Hopefully going to keep our pitching fresh by churning the staff a little bit and moving some guys up and down," said Hinch. "But the best way to get through the grind of this is to start playing better. That will make everyone feel good and you can catch some momentum. As baseball people, we always beg for our in-season routine. Well, here you have it, boys. We’re ready to play every day for about a month straight."