Kerry Carpenter has been in a pretty rough place this spring. After a fairly good, but again injury plagued 2025 season, the Tigers’ right fielder and designated hitter came into camp looking to put together a more consistent 2026 and hopefully finally banish the back and hamstring injuries that have nagged at him for much of his career. He seems healthy, but he just hasn’t been seeing the ball well this spring. With 10 strikeouts through four games, manager A.J. Hinch has at least temporarily pulled the plug on the leadoff experiment.
The lineup on Tuesday night features Colt Keith leading off and playing third base, and this is a fairly interesting development. Keith has always controlled the strike zone pretty well, taking his share of walks and keeping his strikeouts to league average or better levels. Meanwhile, his contact showed signs of improvement last summer that have carried over in the early going. An estimated 416 foot double off Mike Soroka in Monday night’s game was the latest sign that Keith is seeing the ball well and starting to get off more A-swings to take advantage of his plus raw power.
Meanwhile, teams are already scared of Kevin McGonigle, quickly backing away from throwing him fastballs in the zone, and the rookie now moves to the two-hole in tonight’s lineup. No one is putting together better at-bats in the lineup, and he’s already adapted to the respect he’s being shown by taking his walks. He’ll also make his second start at the shortstop position with Javy Báez getting the night off apart from pinch-hitting duties.
Of course, we’re four games into the season. None of this says anything much about how various hitters will do over the course of the season. Carpenter will be fine as long as he’s healthy. But, while the strategy of putting a legit power hitter atop the order is a good one that has found more favor among managers in recent years, particularly if it’s a hitter with pronounced splits that you may want to pinch-hit for later in games, Carpenter needs to heat up before this is going to work.
In the meantime, while it’s customary to protect a rookie a bit by hitting them down in the order until they’ve settled in, McGonigle isn’t a regular rookie. He’s walking and striking out both at a 17.6 percent clip, and holds a 185 wRC+ in the very early going. Keith runs reasonably well, and McGonigle can challenge Parker Meadows as the fastest guy on the team home to first. So the change gives the Tigers some of their most disciplined hitters atop the order, both with the ability to take the extra base.
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