LAKELAND, Fla. -- Riley Greene was standing at third base on Friday afternoon, having just completed one of the better at-bats in his phenomenal spring, when he realized something unsettling.
His right foot really hurt.
Moments earlier, in a battle with New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, Greene had rolled his front foot while following the path of a nasty curveball on the inner part of the plate. That wasn’t a problem in and of itself, but when Greene took a whack at the pitch, the ball ricocheted off the exposed bottom part of his foot.
Such foul balls happen all the time in baseball, and Greene wasn’t initially concerned. Any worry from the dugout disappeared when Greene rapped a 404-foot triple off the wall in center.
But as the inning slowed, the foot tightened up while Greene was left waiting on third base. He knew something was amiss.
“I was like, ‘This doesn’t feel right,’” he remembered in an interview on Tuesday. “Once I got in to the dugout, I told them, ‘I can’t play right now.’”
Greene and the Tigers got the bad news that afternoon, then verified it with a foot specialist later that evening: A bone in the bottom of his foot was broken. He would not make the Tigers’ Opening Day roster.
“It sucked. It sucks right now,” Greene admitted. “The first couple of days I was kind of bummed. But I’m just trying to take something bad and turn it into a positive. Things happen for a reason. I really do believe that.”
The timeline on the injury is a delicate subject -- no one likes underestimating or overestimating such things -- but a quick check of similar injuries on Baseball Prospectus suggests about 60 days is a good benchmark.
“Whether it’s one month, two months, three months -- whatever it’s going to be, I’ll be back,” Greene said. “This is something you can’t really rush. I would like to be back tomorrow if I could. But I’m going to take my time with it because you don’t want something to happen down the road.”
Greene’s positive attitude was on full display a few days after the injury. He jokingly said “Beep! Beep!” as he cruised through the hallway on the scooter that supports his leg. “I need a horn on this thing,” he said.
The Tigers had not yet announced his promotion to the big-league roster, but it had become a foregone conclusion by the end of his sterling spring. After his injury, the Tigers traded for Austin Meadows to bolster the outfield.
They also formally announced that Greene’s close friend and fellow top prospect Spencer Torkelson would make the Opening Day roster.
“It would have been awesome to be together in that moment (on Opening Day),” Greene said. “But this is going to be his moment now. The spotlight’s going to be on him. I’m really happy for him.
“When he came in and told me, I didn’t ‘shed a tear’ -- at this point Greene smiles and uses air quotes -- but it was awesome. He gave me a hug. I’m really happy for him. And I’m definitely going to be watching the first game, that’s for sure.”
While the rest of the team heads north, Greene will remain in Lakeland doing daily rehab.
He can’t drive -- unless you count his clubhouse scooter -- so housemate and fellow rehabber Jake Rogers is in charge of driving his mammoth truck, a Ford F-150 Raptor.
Rogers, a catcher who underwent Tommy John surgery, probably won’t be on the field at Comerica Park until next year. Greene should be back there at some point this summer, after the first major injury of his pro career arrived at an unfortunate time.
“You know it’s going to happen to you eventually one day,” he said. “It just kind of depends on how you take it. I want to come back stronger.”
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