This story was excerpted from Jason Beck’s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Until this year, the Tigers had drafted and developed only one hitter to post a 20-homer season with Detroit since 2010. That was Nick Castellanos.
Spencer Torkelson ended the drought when he hit his 20th and 21st home runs Wednesday in Minnesota. With any good fortune, Kerry Carpenter (16) should join him soon, giving Detroit its first pair of homegrown 20-homer sluggers since Curtis Granderson (30 homers) and Brandon Inge (27) in 2009.
We chronicled Carpenter’s rise earlier this week. Meanwhile, Torkelson is on a tear. The former No. 1 overall Draft pick entered Friday’s doubleheader in Cleveland with six home runs in his last seven games, including a pair of multihomer efforts. He has an .889 OPS with 13 homers and 32 RBIs over his last 42 games since June 27, and his four multi-homer games this season are tied for third-most behind Matt Olson and Max Muncy.
“I feel like I’m seeing the ball well,” Torkelson said. “I have a good, solid approach. I’m trusting it. Even when I don’t feel amazing at the plate, I feel like I can still compete up there and get the job done. I think that’s more rewarding than when you’re up there feeling sexy and you can hit everything. That’s what’s happened. When you can figure out a way to grind out days when you don’t really feel great, that’s a lot more rewarding for myself.”
One fascinating part of his emergence has been his success against breaking balls. Seven of his 11 homers through June came off fastballs. He homered twice on breaking balls in June but still batted 3-for-31 (.097) off them for the month. By contrast, seven of his 10 homers since July have come on breaking pitches, including four of six this month. He’s hitting .286 off breaking balls after batting .269 against them in July.
“He’s going to mature. He’s still a very, very young hitter at this level,” manager A.J. Hinch said last week. “I don’t know if it’s untapped [power]; I just think it’s part of the process of him becoming a more complete power hitter. We’ll see more and more of those.”