The Tigers placed outfielder Kerry Carpenter on the 10-day injured list on Wednesday to address right hamstring tightness that forced him out of Sunday’s win over the Twins but had been an issue for him for several weeks. Manager A.J. Hinch first announced the planned move on MLB Network Radio on Tuesday morning.
"It's mild. It's very similar to what he's been playing through,” said Hinch on Wednesday. “But this is the second time where we have had this scare on the field where we are not sure if he can continue to go.
“Where we are at in the schedule, where we are at with the All-Star break coming, we've been battling this off and on for a while, and now we are going to just take it out of his hands and deal with it directly.”
Shortstop Trey Sweeney, who was optioned to Triple-A Toledo last weekend to make room for the return of Matt Vierling, was recalled in a corresponding move. Additionally right-hander Sawyer Gipson-Long was placed on the 15-day IL with neck tightness, with righty Tyler Owens recalled from Toledo, and left-hander Bailey Horn was added as the 27th man for Wednesday's doubleheader in Washington.
"Yesterday, when we were waiting on the rain, Sawyer came out of his catch play feeling less than perfect,” Hinch said Wednesday. “His neck was stiff. It got a little bit worse as the rest of the night went on. When he woke up this morning, we needed to know whether he could go, and he couldn't. Tyler was here because we knew about the soreness going into the night, as a taxi squad member could replace an injured player. That came to happen today."
Carpenter left Sunday’s game after stretching out a triple, but he initially felt his hamstring tighten up while running after Ty France’s single earlier in the game. Carpenter said after the game that he was optimistic the injury wasn’t serious and felt similar to a previous instance a few weeks ago, which kept him out of only one game as a precaution. But the lingering nature of the injury prompted the team to be more proactive in hopes of preventing it from hampering him in the season’s critical second half.
“We're going to end up making a very cautious decision to put him on the injured list, given where we're at on the calendar,” Hinch told MLB Network Radio before the move. “We have 12 games before the All-Star break. This is the second time he's had these sensations. It's very mild. He probably could play through it. We've had him play through it. And he wants to keep trying to play through it.
"But if you followed us, he's been less than his best and not at 100 percent. He had a funny feeling coming around second, and so, we will just kind of take the decision away from him and be very cautious with where we're at on the calendar even though it's mild [and] even though he's been able to get his way through it.”
Carpenter finished June slashing .224/.246/.567 for the month, with a .814 OPS and six home runs -- including three over his past five games.
The lingering hamstring tightness has become a burden to him, Carpenter admitted after Sunday’s game.
“It's really annoying,” he said, “but man, everyone's been working hard on it. It's hard to put a finger on it, but we'll see how it goes.”
Hinch doesn’t want it to be on his slugger’s mind as they head into the home stretch, which is a big reason why they’re making the move now.
“He felt it on a double that turned into a triple, and you just don't want that type of stuff on players' minds, if they feel like they can't go right at 100 percent,” Hinch told MLB Network Radio. “Maybe he's the tying or go-ahead run, maybe he's got to make a running catch in the gap. Second time, we need to get this right.”