Detroit Tigers' Riley Greene: "I'm not trying to be the best left-handed hitter. I'm not trying to hit the farthest. I'm trying to help my team win."
WEST SACRAMENTO, CA — This is the 125th season of Detroit Tigers baseball.
Riley Greene, a two-time All-Star over four years in MLB, is the fourth player in franchise history to hit 32 home runs before the completion of his age-24 season — and the first to do so since Matt Nokes hit 32 homers in 1987. The others: Rudy York with 35 homers in 1937 and Hank Greenberg with 36 homers in 1935. To top that leaderboard, Greene needs just five homers in the final 28 games this season.
He is on pace for 39 homers and 120 RBIs.
"I'm always going to go back to, I'm here to help my team win," Greene said. "I'm not trying to be the best left-handed hitter. I'm not trying to hit the farthest. I'm just trying to help my team win. If you help the team win, if you do the things that will help your team, all the numbers, it's going to take care of itself."
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His latest home run was epic.
Greene, who turns 25 in late September, hit a 471-foot grand slam over the batter's eye in center field with two strikes and two outs in the third inning against the Athletics on Tuesday, Aug. 26, at Sutter Health Park. He crushed right-hander Osvaldo Bido's hanging slider with a 110.7 mph exit velocity.
It was the first grand slam of Greene's career in the big leagues, spanning 459 games.
"No, it did not surprise me," said Kerry Carpenter, a fellow slugger for the Tigers. "He is as talented as they come. That was one of the best swings I've ever seen."
That swing put Greene in the record books.
He produced the fourth-longest MLB home run in 2025, trailing Mike Trout (484 feet), Byron Buxton (479 feet) and Corbin Carroll (474 feet). He also tied Giancarlo Stanton for the second-longest MLB grand slam in the Statcast era (which dates back to 2015), trailing only Kyle Schwarber (473 feet).
(For reference, the longest home run in the Statcast era belongs to former Tiger Nomar Mazara, who hit a 505-foot homer in 2019 with the Texas Rangers.)
In Tigers history, Greene holds the record for the longest home run in the Statcast era. Before Greene's blast, J.D. Martinez and Jeimer Candelario held the Tigers record with homers that traveled 467 feet.
"It's impressive, and it came at a big moment," manager A.J. Hinch said. "He has all the power in the world. This is a great offensive park, the ball does carry, and he didn't miss it. Factor all those things in, and you get a pretty epic homer — and one that you may not see again. It's hard to do."
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In 2025, Greene is hitting .268 with 32 home runs, 39 walks and 168 strikeouts over 130 games, posting an .840 OPS. He leads MLB in strikeouts, but he is producing power at an elite rate while maintaining an above-average batting average.
As for Tuesday's game, the grand slam from Greene put the Tigers ahead, 4-3, in the third inning, though the Tigers lost, 7-6, in the 10th inning. Greene didn't know how far he hit the ball until he returned to the dugout. Left-hander Tarik Skubal checked the data on an iPad and informed him of the distance.
Later on, Greene watched video to evaluate the swing.
"It was one of my better swings," Greene said. "I was super balanced. My head was down. I felt good."
Trio of 30-something sluggers: Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson, Kerry Carpenter
The Tigers could have three players with 30 home runs in a single season for the second time in franchise history: Greene (32 homers in 130 games) is already there, while Spencer Torkelson (28 homers in 128 games) and Carpenter (22 homers in 104 games) are nearing the milestone.
Greene is on pace for 39 homers, followed by Torkelson at 34 and Carpenter at 27.
Thirty homers from three players in one season has happened one time in Tigers history, thanks to Cecil Fielder (35 homers), Rob Deer (32 homers) and Mickey Tettleton (32 homers) in 1992.
"I try to stay away from too much emphasis on the homers," Hinch said. "I think they're byproducts of getting good pitches to hit. We need to be a team that is dangerous enough to hit a homer but doesn't rely on it every game because they're pretty unpredictable, but it's nice when it happens."
Contact Evan Petzold at [email protected] or follow him @EvanPetzold.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Riley Greene 471-foot HR for Detroit Tigers: 'one of the best swings'
Category: Baseball
