Closers tend to have unique personalities. In that sense, Shane Greene is no different than a lot of closers around the league, introspective to a high degree.

In terms of how he came to be an All-Star closer, however, he’s unique.

“I've tried to explain it before by saying the light bulb in the middle of the room shines light on everything except for itself, so the light bulb will never truly understand what the light is,” Greene said. “So I'll never be able to truly comprehend what I've accomplished and what I'm doing in my life because I'm living it. However, my family and friends do.”

• All-Star Game presented by Mastercard: Tonight, 7:30 ET on FOX

Not only was Greene not a high Draft pick or top prospect, he was barely noticed pitching in school. He’s one of two Major Leaguers ever to come out of Daytona Beach Community College, where he enrolled after Tommy John surgery cost him a spot at the University of West Florida in his freshman season. He was still recovering from surgery at Daytona Beach but impressed Yankee scouts enough with a mid-90s fastball to earn a 15th-round pick in the 2009 MLB Draft.

Greene didn’t dominate in the Minors but showed steady improvement to keep moving up, despite a 4.29 ERA and 1.465 WHIP over six Minor League seasons. He did enough that when the Yankees needed pitching help in 2014, they called up Greene – once as a spot reliever, then in midseason as a starter.

In his sixth Major League start, he tossed eight scoreless innings against a stacked Tigers lineup and outpitched then-Tiger Rick Porcello for a 1-0 win. Three weeks later, he went to Comerica Park and beat them again with seven strong innings and eight strikeouts.

Greene impressed the Tigers enough that they traded for him that offseason, giving up Robbie Ray and an infield prospect in a three-team deal. He won his first three starts as a Tiger, allowing one earned run over 23 innings, and seemed poised for stardom.

He threw two quality starts the rest of the season. By mid-June, he was optioned to Triple-A Toledo. By mid-August, he was on the injured list with a vascular condition in his right hand. An aneurysm in his shoulder was causing blood clots to travel to his hand, cutting off blood to two fingers and leading to numbness, a condition he still handles to this day.

Greene found the right treatment to return next spring and win a rotation spot before a blister shelved him again. This time, the Tigers called up a young pitcher in Michael Fulmer to take his place. Fulmer won AL Rookie of the Year honors. Greene won a spot in the bullpen when he returned in June. The adrenaline rush fit him.

“Once I was in the bullpen, my goal was to be a closer and to be one of the best,” Greene said. “I don't work to be mediocre. If you're just trying to be mediocre, you're not going to be here long. It's about striving for being the best and never settling and never getting content with what you're doing. But the good thing about the game of baseball is that it will remind you real quickly when you think you've got it figured out. It'll remind you that you don't.”

Greene had his share of those. He went from setup man to closer following the Justin Wilson trade at the 2017 Deadline and looked like a star. Then he went into the 2018 season at closer and looked like a reliever vulnerable to home runs, finishing with a 5.12 ERA. It never cost him his role, but it led to a lesson.

“Last year, I had some ups and downs and especially toward the end of the year I struggled really bad,” Greene said Monday from All-Star festivities. “I kind of took that into the offseason and did a lot of thinking, trying to evaluate what went wrong and learn from it. I knew that it wasn't my stuff. I was pretty positive it was what was going on in between my ears, so I just kind of changed [my] mindset a little bit and [did] my best to live pitch by pitch.”

“It's a crazy game we play, and I think understanding that statement has helped me the most, just because the biggest part of this game is mental, dealing with the failures,” he said. “The failures are going to come. Sometimes they come and it feels like a thunderstorm or a tornado or a hurricane, they come so fast. Luckily time heals everything. You put a couple good ones together, you start feeling better about yourself and the next thing you know you're ticked off again because you had some bad luck.”

This is the year Greene figured it out, and the results have been impressive. Though the Tigers entered the break with just 28 wins, Greene has saved 22 of them. No Major League pitcher with at least 30 innings this season has a lower ERA than Greene’s 1.09. Just six big league pitchers with 30 or more innings have held hitters to a lower batting average than Greene’s .158 clip.

After setting a Major League mark with seven saves in the Tigers’ first 10 games, and 12 saves by the end of April, Greene has only had five save chances since the beginning of June. But he stays ready.

“We haven't been winning that many games, so my pitching has been very sporadic,” he said. “I have my routine to try to stay crisp every day. Even though I may go four or five days without pitching, I still feel good. I think that's the main key. To be honest, I think the learning curve, learning how to be crisp when you're not pitching all the time, is going to really benefit me in the long run.”

With trade speculation rampant that the rebuilding Tigers will make a deal, there’s a good chance Greene will be wearing a different uniform at the end of the month, and he accepts it. But that’s for later. For now, after so many times warming up in the visiting bullpen at Progressive Field, he’s ready to use the home one.

“It's cliché to say treat it like any other game, which is what I'm going to do as far as my routine and whatnot, but I'm sure it'll be a little bit different feeling running out that gate,” Greene said.

The 2019 All-Star Game presented by Mastercard will be played on tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET at Progressive Field in Cleveland. It will be televised nationally by FOX Sports; in Canada by Rogers Sportsnet and RDS; and worldwide by partners in more than 180 countries. FOX Deportes will provide Spanish-language coverage in the United States, while ESPN Radio and ESPN Radio Deportes will provide exclusive national radio coverage. MLB Network, MLB.com and SiriusXM also will provide comprehensive All-Star Week coverage.