The Tigers are placing designated hitter/outfielder Kerry Carpenter on the 10-day injured list due to a hamstring injury, manager A.J. Hinch told host Jim Duquette in an appearance on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM this morning. Infielder Trey Sweeney will be recalled from Triple-A Toledo to take Carpenter’s spot on the roster.
Carpenter is fifth on the Tigers in plate appearances but third with 16 home runs, trailing Riley Greene (19) and Spencer Torkelson (17) despite having 68 fewer plate appearances than Greene and 53 fewer than Torkelson. The 27-year-old slugger is hitting .257/.285/.494 overall but had just been heating up at the plate, breaking out of a lengthy slump with three homers in his past four games started. Carpenter, however, exited Sunday’s win over the Twins after grabbing at his hamstring while legging out a triple.
It’s the first IL stint of the season for Carpenter but his fourth in the past four seasons. He’s twice gone on the injured list lumbar injuries in his back, ultimately landing on the 60-day IL due to that issue in 2024. Carpenter also missed about six weeks of the 2023 season due to a sprain in his right shoulder.
When healthy, Carpenter has quietly been one of Detroit’s top sources of power. He’s played 314 games since debuting in 2022 and slugged 60 round-trippers in 1148 trips to the plate. He popped 18 homers in just 296 plate appearances last year and is close to matching that pace in 2025. Carpenter’s power prompted teammate Beau Brieske to give him the tongue-in-cheek nickname “Kerry Bonds” back during their minor league days, and it’s carried over into the big leagues despite Carpenter’s reluctance to accept the moniker in full.
With Carpenter on the shelf, Matt Vierling and Javier Baez will likely be in line for additional plate appearances in the short-term. It’s not immediately clear how long Carpenter will be sidelined, though Hinch suggested that the team is taking a conservative approach with this IL stint, which would imply that it’s not a major injury.
Was watching the game, as soon as he got out of the box, he wasn’t feeling good. He got to third base on just willpower. Hopefully he’s not out too long.
Get well soon, Kerry Bonds. I would have called up Justin-Henry Malloy, but maybe he’s better off getting regular ABs in Toledo.
I like Malloy too, but I think they wanted to call-up another LEFT-handed hitter….
“With Carpenter on the shelf, Matt Vierling and Javier Baez will likely be in line for additional plate appearances….”….I don’t think so. Carpenter is a LEFT-handed hitter platooned heavily and Vierling/Baez are right-handed….I’d think Wenceel Perez,, Parker Meadows and maybe Sweeny will benefit most from Carp’s absence….
Yes, Perez will be playing more. It’s almost like the professional writer doesn’t watch the best team in baseball.
BMI = 29. And injured. No surprise anymore.
MLB thinks it’s a contact sport so players need to bulk up. Idiotic. Completely and thoroughly idiotic.
It’s cute you know the physical attributes and muscle mass of each player based solely on often outdated and arbitrary stats like height & weight on player profile pages
Correlation my friend. It’s very strong. That does not mean that larger causes more injuries but that there IS a relationship. Confounding variables? Sure. But the fact remains that there is a relationship. Whether BMI is out of date is essentially inconsequential.
You can say you are looking at correlation but your calling MLB idiotic for having players bulk speaks to a casual relationship. You can’t have it both ways. Or you don’t actually understand causal v correlation and are just espousing nonsense on the internet so you can feel smart.
My dude using BMI in the big ’25? And I thought people who use batting average were behind the times…
sounds like you need a job in MLB to let the professionals know what they are doing wrong.
As the players get bigger there are more injuries. There, simple enough? It IS true.
As children’s feet get bigger so does their IQ
He will come back after the all star game fresh and healthy for the second half. Nice break for him. He was coming out of his mini slump nicely the last few games, so it is a little set back there, but the rest will help heal him up. GO TIGERS !!
Smoke and mirrors, the story of the Tigers!
Typically smoke and mirrors doesn’t last 85 games. They do have the best pitcher in the league. They’re probably going to pick up a big bat and a big reliever in July. Seems like they’re going to have as good a chance as any team come playoffs.
Go cheer for your team troll.
sorry Tigers’ fans, I just traded for him for my fantasy team…if you could see my team, you’d know this is my fault.
nice. job.
Would rather let those ABs go to Malloy. I don’t care about righty-lefty. Malloy puts up better ABs against righties than Sweeney does.
Sweeney frees up either Baez or McKinstry to move to the OF. I’d rather see those RH ABs go to Jones over Malloy.
I always liked Jones and agree that it would be interesting to see how well he can do with extended play.
If Carpenter could stay healthy and hit lefties, he would very possibly be one of the better hitters in baseball.
IF
they add a position players by trade….
How to slim the 25 and 40?
Someone is playing to stay in the mlb……