Riley Greene didnât step to the plate thinking about history. He wasnât chasing a milestone or swinging for the record books. He just wanted to win a baseball game.
âI was just thinking, âWin the baseball game.â That’s about it,â Greene said after the Tigers‘ emphatic 9-1 win over the Angels on Friday night, per Jason Beck of MLB.com. âThat was the only thing on my mind: Let’s win this game.â
He ended up doing both.
With the game tied 1-1 in the top of the ninth, Greene launched a solo shot off Angels closer Kenley Jansen to give Detroit the lead. That alone was a moment most players dream about â a go-ahead home run in the final inning on the road. But Greene wasnât done.
When he stepped back into the box later that same inning, the stakes had shifted. The Tigers had already broken the game open, and Greene had a chance to do something no one in Major League Baseball history had ever done â homer twice in the ninth inning of a game.
A Ninth-Inning Feat Thatâs Never Been Done
With Jake Eder on the mound and two runners aboard, Greene saw a sweeper and didnât miss. He crushed it to right-center, a Statcast-projected 409 feet into the California night, giving him his second homer of the inning and his fourth RBI of the frame. Detroit poured it on in the ninth, and Greene cemented himself in baseball lore.
âThe second one felt a lot better,â Greene said.
It wasnât just a great moment. It was an unprecedented one. According to MLB, Greene became the first player in AL/NL history to hit two home runs in the ninth inning of a game. Sixty-one others had homered twice in an inning, but none had ever done it in the final frame.
His first blast wasnât a no-doubter. Greene admitted he wasnât sure it was going to leave the park and hustled out of the box just in case.
âI got it, but it didn’t feel too good,â he said. âI got out of the box because I needed to get on second or third.â
By the time he got to the second at-bat, the feel was unmistakable â a no-doubt rocket that finished off a dream inning.
Greene now joins elite Tigers company as only the third player in franchise history to go deep twice in one inning. Magglio Ordóñez did it in the seventh against Oakland in 2007, and Al Kaline pulled it off in the sixth inning back in 1955.
Greene, who once met Kaline before his passing in 2020, now has a moment that wouldâve made âMr. Tigerâ proud.
âPretty cool,â Greene said â probably the understatement of the season.
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