Meadows a menace on the basepaths since return from IL

SAN FRANCISCO -- Oracle Park provides some of the most beautiful views in baseball with its outfield concourse overlooking the San Francisco Bay, sun-drenched and sparkling on a summer Saturday afternoon. For speedsters like Parker Meadows, the best view might be Triples Alley, the cavernous area in right-center field that tops out at 415 feet from home plate.

Meadows didn’t quite hit the depths of Triples Alley on Saturday, but he came close enough that he took off running as soon as the line drive left his bat, his eyes widened as Giants center fielder Heliot Ramos and right fielder Mike Yastrzemski retreated and gave chase.

Meadows fell just shy of the MLB threshold for elite sprint speed (30 ft./sec.) on his way around the bases, topping out at 29.4 ft./sec. as his helmet flew off his head rounding second base. But his dash from home to third in 11.07 seconds marked the 13th fastest such time in the Majors this season, according to Statcast. He owns two of the 13 fastest times this year, a leaderboard dominated by reigning National League Rookie of the Year Corbin Carroll, American League MVP candidate Bobby Witt Jr. and Cubs rookie Pete Crow-Armstrong.

Three pitches and a Dillon Dingler ground ball later, Meadows was home, sprawled on his back behind the plate with arms spread out to signal safe. He’d beaten shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald’s throw to the plate, given the Tigers a lead and dirtied the entire back of his jersey to go with his legs on his slide into third.

It was the only jolt the Tigers had against Giants ace Logan Webb, who had held Detroit to an Akil Baddoo infield single over the four innings before that. Unlike Meadows’ game-saving catch in Seattle on Wednesday, the boost didn’t last for long; Webb’s seven innings of four-hit ball and eight strikeouts set up San Francisco’s latest comeback in a 3-1 Detroit defeat.

“For a half-inning it felt good, until they scored three,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “But for us, we tried to scratch anything across. It was soft contact and swing-and-miss, and Webb was really good early, so any jolt was good. We tried to battle.”

It was the latest in what has been a week-long reminder of what the Tigers were missing while Meadows was on the injured list until last weekend. Combine his third triple of the season with his ninth-inning single to put the potential tying run on base off Giants closer Ryan Walker, and Meadows not only accounted for nearly half of Detroit’s hits, he posted his fifth multi-hit effort in as many games since his return. He’s 10-for-22 (.455) with four extra-base hits, four RBIs and four runs scored in that stretch, and he entered Saturday night with the Majors’ longest active extra-base hit streak.

The Tigers are 3-2 in games he has played since his return. He did not play in Friday’s series-opening walk-off loss, partly a matchup play against former Tigers lefty Robbie Ray and partly a preventative measure to limit the risk of aggravating the right hamstring strain that sidelined him after a similar stretch upon his return from Triple-A Toledo in early July.

Even in Meadows' small sample size of recent at-bats, he has shown the plate discipline and bat-to-ball skills to put his speed to work on offense in the same way he has utilized it in center field.

“I think it goes back to having a plan and just sticking to it,” Meadows said. “At the beginning of the year in the big leagues, it was hard. Once you kind of stop hitting and you’re not doing too well, your mind starts going crazy. It’s hard to keep a plan. So when I went back down [to Toledo in May], I told myself I’m going to have a plan and I’m going to stick to it no matter what. So I rolled with it, and I’m going to continue to roll with it. It’s trusting myself and my plan.”

Meadows has batted sixth or seventh during his streak, and eighth or ninth for his few games back from Toledo before his hamstring injury. He hasn’t batted at or near the top of the Tigers' order since the first couple weeks of the season. If he keeps hitting like this, that might have to change, especially with Wenceel Pérez sidelined for the foreseeable future with a left oblique strain.

“Parker had a pretty good day across the board,” Hinch said. “We just didn’t piece anything together.”