Tigers call up center fielder Parker Meadows before Reds' game
Chris McCoskyDetroit — The Tigers called up center fielder Parker Meadows from Triple-A Toledo, a league source confirmed.
Meadows, 24, hit just .096 in 32 games with the Tigers before being optioned back to Toledo on May 6.
The Tigers wanted him to make some mechanical adjustments at the plate and cut down on the swing-and-miss — especially up in the strike zone — and strikeouts.
Mission accomplished.
In 47 games with the Mud Hens, Meadows slashed .298/.394/.511 with a .904 OPS. He produced 10 doubles, three triples and eight home runs with a 19% strikeout rate.
With Meadows back playing in center field, Riley Greene will be able to lock back into left field. He’d been moving back and forth between left field and center field recently.
The move will also take some of the load off Matt Vierling, though the expectation is he will still start in center against left-handed pitching.
The Tigers haven’t officially announced the move, so it’s unclear what the corresponding move will be. Unless someone is going on the injured list — Vierling has been playing on a sore foot and was taken out of the game late Thursday — Akil Baddoo would seem to be a likely candidate to be optioned.
Baddoo is hitting .132 with a .242 on-base percentage in 53 at-bats and until he got back-to-back starts in Minnesota, he was playing sparingly.
@cmccosky