The Detroit Tigers dodged disaster with one of their most valuable offensive players.
The Tigers‘ Spencer Torkelson was fine and back in action Thursday after he was hit by a pitch on the forearm in a simulated game Tuesday.
Torkelson batted cleanup in Detroit’s 4-3 loss to the New York Yankees. The 26-year-old first baseman slashed .240/.333/.456 with 31 home runs for the Tigers in 2025, helping them reach the playoffs for the second straight year.
Spencer Torkelson Dodgers a ‘Scary’ Injury
The Tigers will open their season in less than two weeks, March 26 against the San Diego Padres in Southern California. Detroit’s primary objective is getting its regulars healthy and built up.
But most broken bones take six-to-eight weeks for players to recover from, which means Torkelson would have gone on the injured list and missed opening day. Instead, he only had a right-forearm contusion — a bruise — on a pitch thrown by Detroit reliever Burch Smith.
“It was scary,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said Wednesday according to Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. “It’s going to happen, whether it’s a game or a practice game. From what I know, from afar, we’ve avoided anything major.”
After taking Wednesday off, Torkelson was back at first base in Lakeland, Florida on Thursday. He went 0 for 3 while playing seven innings against the Yankees before exiting the game for Andrew Jenkins in the top of the eighth inning.
Spencer Torkelson is Struggling in Spring Training
It’s a spring-training cliche that major leaguers shouldn’t leave all their hits in Florida, but Torkelson may want to put together some success before the Tigers head out west.
Torkelson is 4 for 22 with two extra-base hits and one walk. His spring-training OPS is .490, and his on-base percentage is a paltry .217, and he has seven strikeouts in those 23 plate appearances.
An injury would have been the cherry on top of a brutal exhibition slate for the Tigers first baseman, so maybe his luck is turning.
But for a player hoping to unlock his ceiling for the Tigers in his first preseason as the unchallenged starter at first base, Torkelson’s struggles are alarming.
“I still believe I haven’t proven much in this game.,” Torkelson told reporters in February. “So it’s pretty easy to light a fire every single day knowing, or trying to figure out, ‘How good can I be?’ That’s the motivation. It’s not, ‘Can I stick?’ It’s like, ‘how good can I be?’”
The No. 1 overall pick of the 2020 MLB Draft hit eight homers in March/April in 2025, setting him up his season where he tied his career high in home runs while establishing himself as a fixture in Detroit’s lineup.
But even coming off his huge 2025 season, and knowing he’s Detroit’s guy at first base, he’s focused on taking nothing for granted.
“I learned my lessons in 2024, where maybe I was a little too comfortable going into that season coming off 2023,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t have enough fire to where I started off slow and didn’t fully trust it. Going into this year, I’m staying as hungry as possible.”
Tigers Get Spencer Torkelson Update After ‘Scary’ Injury During Spring Training