Tigers fans are clinging to AJ Hinch’s hopeful Riley Greene message

After a scorching hot start to the 2025 season, Detroit Tigers left fielder Riley Greene has been almost unrecognizable for the past couple of weeks.

The 24-year-old slugger had gone 11-for-58 in his last 15 games entering Thursday's matchup against the Kansas City Royals with a .190/.230/.397 slash line during that span that was boosted only by his three home runs. Greene didn't record a single hit for the Tigers in nine games from April 6-16, while striking out 19 times during that span.

Unsurprisingly, Greene's slump coincided with a quiet stretch at the plate for the entire Tigers offense. Entering Thursday's game, they had scored one run or fewer in four of their last six contests. As Greene continued to miss the same pitches he usually mashed, the rest of the Tigers' bats seemed to go cold as well.

"I know he's carrying the weight of the last at-bat into the next at-bat," Tigers manager AJ Hinch told Chris McCosky of The Detroit News on Wednesday. "And when you are going through these stretches, everybody looks for solutions and you have a lot of people in your ear. We're just trying to grind him through this a little bit and get him swinging at better pitches."

Tigers manager AJ Hinch believes Riley Greene's turnaround is right around the corner

In Thursday's series opener against the Royals, everything changed for Greene. He looked like his old self, driving in a pair of runs as part of a three-hit night in which he didn't record a single strikeout.

The Tigers erupted for six runs against the Royals on Thursday, with Spencer Torkelson scoring three and Zach McKinstry adding an RBI of his own to supplement Greene's two. It was just what the doctor ordered for the Tigers, who had dropped their previous two games against the Milwaukee Brewers by a combined score of 10-1.

As Greene goes, so goes the rest of the Tigers' offense. On Wednesday, Hinch said that Greene was "one good day from erasing a lot" of his recent slump. Hopefully, Thursday was that day.

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