Reeling Tigers offense feeling effects without Carpenter

DETROIT -- Kerry Carpenter is probably the most upbeat, consistently positive player in the Tigers’ clubhouse. When he injured his shoulder last year, he turned a negative into a positive by spending his rehab assignment working on his approach against left-handed pitchers.

Still, even he couldn’t hide his frustration Friday when he was asked about his patience level after four weeks out and counting with a stress fracture in his lower back.

“I’m losing it,” Carpenter admitted. “It’s been tough to watch and not be out there. I miss everybody. I miss being out there on the field.”

As strong as that sounds, the Tigers might miss Carpenter more.

Saturday’s 5-1 loss to the White Sox marked the Tigers’ fifth loss in six games since their 13-run outburst at Houston last Saturday. They’ve scored six runs in that stretch, their lowest run total in any six-game span since Sept. 4-9, 2005. They’re 9-14 since Carpenter last played on May 26.

The Tigers entered Saturday batting .216 in June, second-lowest in the Majors to the Mariners. Their .615 OPS for the month is higher only than the Marlins. Against right-handers, Carpenter’s primary role, the Tigers are batting .210 with a .598 OPS in June, better only than the Rays.

Detroit could’ve really used Carpenter on Saturday against White Sox rookie Drew Thorpe, whose changeup is his primary out pitch. Carpenter is batting .310 with a 90.2 mile-per-hour exit velocity against offspeed pitches this season, both up from last year according to Statcast, with seven of his nine hits going for extra bases -- four doubles, three home runs. That includes a .250 average and 47.4 percent hard-hit rate against changeups.

The Tigers never quite got up to speed with Thorpe’s offspeed; his changeup comprised 38 of his 94 pitches -- one more than his fastball -- with 10 swings and misses and three called strikes. The hardest-hit changeup had an 82.7 mph exit velocity, similar to his hardest-thrown changeup at 82.6 mph.

“We know it's part of his arsenal; there's no secrets up here. And it still looked like we couldn't eliminate it,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “Very similar to any guy that has a plus changeup or something he uses a lot, your choice is to try to eliminate it and then you've got to get on the hitter, or you have to sit soft and try to direct the ball to the middle part of the field, and we did neither.”

Matt Vierling added: “We were going to be on his fastball. We knew that he was going to go to some offspeed, didn't know if it was going to be the slider or the changeup. But as the game went on, he definitely started liking his changeup more and we had trouble adjusting to the drop in velo from the fastball. Obviously frustrating for all of us that we couldn't make that adjustment.”

Carpenter’s absence is no excuse for the Tigers’ overall offensive struggles, nor is his eventual return a cure-all. Still, it shows the value of Carpenter’s presence in a lineup that’s short on experience and shorter on consistent impact hitters.

Carpenter is on track to resume baseball activity on Monday. From there, he’ll start building up from swinging off a tee to live swings to batting practice, all while getting his feet under him again. Once he’s ready for game action, he’s expected to need about a week and a half of games on a Minor League rehab assignment. Add it up, and he could still be about a month away.

“It could be a slow ramp for him,” Hinch said Friday, “but it’s encouraging that he can start to do baseball things.”

Where this team stands when he returns, and what the lineup looks like, is a mystery. The Tigers are giving a long runway for young hitters to acclimate to Major League pitching, but their recent struggles have tested the youthful enthusiasm of an offense that seems to be spinning its wheels at the moment.

“When you think about hitting in general, even when we score runs, somebody has had a bad day,” Hinch said. “And so we need the reverse. We’ve got to have somebody have a really good day in order to pick the team up with a big swing or a big hit. But you can’t just snap your fingers and do it. It’s about getting a good pitch to hit.”