Riley Greene keeps stacking up the kind of numbers that put a player in some pretty rare Detroit company, and the Tigers could use every bit of that right now.
Detroit left New York on Wednesday with a sweep of the Yankees, the club’s first in the Bronx since 2008. It was the kind of trip the Tigers needed as they try to claw back into playoff contention for a third straight year and, in the bigger picture, avoid the kind of future that would force them to trade pitcher Tarik Skubal and change the direction of the franchise.
Greene didn’t do the damage in Wednesday’s game itself. He went 0-for-3, but still managed an RBI and scored a run in an extra-inning win that turned into a four-run Tigers outburst in the 11th. The bigger story came a day earlier, when Greene put together a performance that landed him in a tiny corner of team history.
He homered in the first inning as Detroit jumped all over Yankees starter Cam Schlittler, then did it again in the third. That gave Greene 11 home runs and 38 RBI on the season, but it also pushed him into a milestone only two other Tigers had reached before age 26.
According to Tigers PR on X, Greene became the third player in franchise history to top 85 homers, 300 runs and 300 RBI before turning 26.
The only names ahead of him are Travis Fryman and Al Kaline.
Fryman reached the majors with the Tigers in 1990 at age 21. He was a first-round pick in 1897 out of Tate High School in Cantonment, Fla.
In his rookie year, he finished sixth in AL Rookie of the Year voting, then spent the first eight seasons of his 13-year career in Detroit. He later played five years in Cleveland, made five All-Star teams, won a Silver Slugger and finished with 223 home runs and 1,022 RBI.
With the Tigers, he hit 149 home runs and drove in 679 runs.
Kaline is the bigger monument in the franchise’s story. His number is retired, he’s in the Hall of Fame, and he’s long been viewed as one of the game’s great outfielders.
A Bloomfield Hills native, he began his career in 1953, skipped the draft era entirely, and went straight from high school to the majors after signing for a $15,000 bonus. He never wore another uniform.
Over 22 seasons with Detroit, he hit 399 home runs and drove in 1,582 runs. He never won an AL MVP, but he did make 18 All-Star teams, win 10 Gold Gloves, claim a batting title and take home a World Series ring in 1968.
Greene still has a long climb if he’s going to match either of them. But at 87 home runs, 306 runs scored and 301 RBI, he’s already carved out a place in some very exclusive Tigers territory. And Detroit has him under team control for two more seasons.
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