Pouncing Tigers Snared by Injuries to E-Rod and Greene

Eduardo Rodriguez
Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

May was a successful month for the Tigers, a franchise which in recent years has been lacking in happily remembered calendar pages. Detroit’s .577 winning percentage in May (15–11) is its best full month since a .615 mark (16–10) all the way back in July 2016. And while it would be a stretch to say that everything has been coming up bengal, given that the team’s run differential is still slightly in the negative for the month, the bleakness of the AL Central has allowed the Tigers to come within a game of the division lead. Even Spencer Torkelson, whose bat disappeared in 2022, has been playing better baseball, putting up a 119 wRC+ in May. Unfortunately, fate wasn’t even kind enough to give Detroit the whole month; a couple of days before the calendar flip, injuries to Eduardo Rodriguez and Riley Greene have ended May on a decidedly sour note.

These Tigers certainly aren’t strangers to injury. Every team faces injuries sooner or later, but Detroit managed to win in May despite an entire rotation’s worth of promising pitchers — Tarik Skubal, Matt Manning, Spencer Turnbull, Casey Mize, and Beau Brieske — out with injuries. The contributions of Rodriguez and Greene had a lot to do with that. The former’s hot April start continued in May with a 2.03 ERA/2.61 FIP over five outings; the latter hit a star-level .365/.435/.573 for the month. That came crashing down on Tuesday with two bits of very unwelcome news.

First, it was announced that Rodriguez would be placed on the 15-day IL with a ruptured pulley in his index finger. I mainly know pulleys as what grand pianos fall from while being hoisted by movers in 1930s movies and cartoons, which doesn’t seem directly applicable here, but luckily, Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic talked with orthopedist Dr. David Hay about the specifics of Rodriguez’s injury:

“If you have a rupture of the A4 pulley and you rest, tape, allow it to heal and gradually progress, it will essentially heal to a functional capacity,” Hay said, “then you can ramp things up, and we’d think that he could get back to doing everything. This should be something that in the long term is going to be OK.”

In the short term, things are less clear. Hay said a typical recovery involves 10-14 days of serious rest, followed by 2 to 4 weeks of light recovery, usually with a taped finger. Hay estimated it could be six to eight weeks before a pitcher is throwing at high intensity and up to three months before the finger feels normal.

Even if Rodriguez is able to return before the finger feels fully normal, two months is a healthy chunk of the season. It’s a big blow for a pitcher who was having an All-Star season and getting back to where he was in 2019, the year he garnered his only Cy Young votes to date.

As for Greene, he was pulled from a game after A.J. Hinch didn’t like how he looked when fielding a Corey Seager line drive to center in the third inning.

Greene’s likely replacement would have been Matt Vierling, but Vierling, who missed Monday’s game with lower back soreness, is joining his teammates on the IL. Detroit acquired journeyman outfielder Jake Marisnick from the White Sox a few days ago as an emergency option; he now looks to be Detroit’s main option in center, as there’s little competition for the temp job.

To fill Rodriguez’s spot in the rotation, the Tigers have tapped Reese Olson, who has struggled this season with his command pitching for the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens. ZiPS at least thought he was a suitable fifth starter option entering the season, so perhaps it’s not a completely lost cause.

In a tight race in which the Tigers probably need some good fortune to come away with a division crown, losing their top pitcher and top hitter for any length of time is going to come with consequences. With a healthy Rodriguez and Greene, here are what the ZiPS projected standings would look like as of Wednesday morning:

ZiPS Projected Standings – AL Central (5/31, No Greene/E-Rod Injuries)
Team W L GB Pct Div% WC% Playoff%
Minnesota Twins 83 79 .512 60.3% 1.6% 61.9%
Cleveland Guardians 78 84 5 .481 21.7% 1.8% 23.5%
Detroit Tigers 76 86 7 .469 12.7% 1.1% 13.8%
Chicago White Sox 72 90 11 .444 5.2% 0.4% 5.6%
Kansas City Royals 62 100 21 .383 0.1% 0.0% 0.1%

ZiPS still thinks the Twins will eventually more or less right the ship and that the Guardians will start hitting better than the A’s, but both teams are in a precarious enough position to give the Tigers a pretty good outside shot — about one in eight — of taking the division (the odds are strongly against any AL Central team winning a wild card spot). ZiPS was also a fan of both Greene and Rodriguez — enough that they were breakout picks of mine before 2023 and 2022, respectively — and assumes that a 2.5-month absence for the latter and three weeks out for the former is enough to knock off a little more than a win in the projections.

ZiPS Projected Standings – AL Central (5/31)
Team W L GB Pct Div% WC% Playoff%
Minnesota Twins 84 78 .519 63.1% 1.5% 64.6%
Cleveland Guardians 78 84 6 .481 23.6% 1.8% 25.4%
Detroit Tigers 74 88 10 .457 7.7% 0.8% 8.5%
Chicago White Sox 72 90 12 .444 5.5% 0.4% 5.9%
Kansas City Royals 62 100 22 .383 0.1% 0.0% 0.1%

That one loss is enough to chop off nearly half of Detroit’s playoff appearances, a significant hit for a team mired in a long and fairly unsuccessful rebuilding process.

There’s still hope, though. While the offense doesn’t have a lot of short-term upside, if the Tigers can keep it close for the next few months, they could start seeing some of their young pitchers creep back into the picture. Manning threw a bullpen session on Tuesday, a signal that he’s getting close to returning from last month’s broken foot, and Skubal is nearing the start of rehab assignment as he recovers from flexor tendon surgery; he could be back near the All-Star break if things break his way. Even Mize, recovering from Tommy John surgery, has a shot at appearing in September, just in time for any final stretch drive. If the Tigers remain within striking distance in two months and an actual surplus of pitching looks like a possibility, you could even theoretically see them trade a pitcher for offensive help, which wouldn’t be part of the above projections.

While this happy scenario isn’t the most likely result, having actual hope is a relatively novel status for these Tigers. For now, they should just watch out for more falling pianos.





Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.

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paulkrugman2055
9 months ago

unbelievable. I got them at 20/1 to win the division last week. Easiest schedule remaining in MLB.All 4 central teams bad to average. They get back Skubal,Manning,Carpenter.Now,they have no shot. Puke