Spencer Torkelson yelled at the ball as he ran towards first base.
“Get down!” he yelled, willing it to find some grass. “Get down!”
Then again, I think half the crowd in Comerica Park was yelling the same thing. If ever there was a kid who needed a hit, it was Torkelson, who had started his career going 0-for-10 with seven strikeouts.
But the ball did get down.
Torkelson, the Detroit Tigers rookie, doubled to right-center Tuesday afternoon, getting his first big-league hit. He stood on second base and broke into a huge smile, and the crowd started cheering.
And kept cheering.
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“Having a crowd give me a little ovation was sweet,” Torkelson said later in a quiet, somber clubhouse because the Tigers lost 5-3 to the Boston Red Sox.
But Torkelson got his first hit.
And two batters later, he scored his first run.
That was followed by a high-five from Jonathan Schoop and a hug from Eric Haase in the dugout.
“I feel like a proud dad,” Haase said. “Him and Riley (Greene), I got to spend a lot of time with those guys at the alternate site (in 2020). I’ve seen them kind of mature as players and as people, so it’s awesome. We all know what he can do in this clubhouse. So it was just a matter of time before you get that one out of the way and he starts hammering some stuff.”
The pressure, Torkelson said, was never building.
But getting the first hit is still momentous.
“We’re all happy for him,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “Hopefully he can exhale, everybody around him can exhale. … We’ve all been there. If you’ve been a position player that’s played in the big leagues, it’s the longest wait in the history before you get your first hit unless you get your first knock in your first hit, Not all of us can be Akil (Baddoo).”
Torkelson already maturing
There is one big takeaway from that hit. It shows how much Torkelson has grown in the past year and how he is better equipped to handle the results that crop up in this game of failure.
He didn’t let his 0-for-10 streak snowball. He didn’t let it turn into a month-long struggle.
Like last year.
A year ago, he looked lost in spring training. Hesitant. Like he didn’t know if he should swing or not. He was taking strikes.
And it turned into a snowball that rolled right into the season at Single-A West Michigan.
But he learned from those struggles. He grew from them. And he used that experience to help him through this slow start.
“Absolutely,” Torkelson said. “Last year, I was 0-for 10 or 0-for-15, whatever it was. That was my first time going 0-for anything over five, probably. So I learned to trust myself.”
Torkelson was having good at-bats. He didn’t look out of sorts. He wasn’t swinging wildly. He didn’t look like he was melting down. More than anything, he was just getting squeezed — in my eyes — by the umps.
“Going through last year really helped me stay the course, respect the baseball gods,” Torkelson said. “They’re testing me a little bit, but just same energies, keep the same course. And it’ll find its way.”
Then, that ball got down and all the “0-for” talk melted away.
“It feels good to get out of the way,” Torkelson said. “And it’s just, it’s funny how baseball works and that I felt even more relaxed in those next at-bats after it… like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.”
[ Spencer Torkelson comfortable in MLB debut: ‘I wasn’t expecting the roar’ ]
Bingo.
That’s the big point.
Now, he’s going to be even more relaxed.
He has looked like he belongs at first base, scooping errant throws and doing all the little things well.
He has looked like he belongs at the plate, even when he wasn’t getting hits.
“I feel like I belong here,” Torkelson said. “I feel like I’m seeing the ball great.”
The Tigers are 2-3, but Torkelson has taken on the mantra of his manager.
“We all hate losing,” Torkelson said. “But we also know that it’s a long season, and we’re gonna figure it out. We’re gonna learn how to win. We’re going to win often. And then we’re going to take those losses, learn from them, and then flush them as fast as possible.”
There is only one question left: What will he do with his ball?
It’s going straight to his “man cave.”
“It’s a pretty weak man cave,” Torkelson said. “It’s a minor-league man cave.”
There will be time for that to change, of course.
Torkelson is not flashy. You don’t see bling around his neck. You don’t hear him bragging or talking trash. He’s exceedingly polite and respectful. He seems like a normal, everyday kid who grew up in a solid family with great parents. Plucked out of suburbia and thrown into a fishbowl. He went through struggles but has come out of it.
And he just got his first MLB hit.
It’s kinda cool.
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Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @seideljeff.