Play ball (again)! Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson top Tigers' first instructional league lineup

Lakeland, Fla. — It’s a peculiar time for Opening Day — Oct. 14.

But the first inter-team duel in 2020 for Tigers minor-leaguers was to begin against the Blue Jays at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium as the Tigers Instructional League, a week after convening, was to shift into an actual game-setting.

Tigers minor-leaguers were just warming up for 2020 in March when their season was zapped by COVID-19’s infiltration of the TigerTown complex as it lay siege on an entire world.

Apart from a handful of top prospects who worked with the Tigers' big-league and taxi-squad teams at Detroit and Toledo, the brunt of Detroit’s farm talent was left to work out on its own, mostly from home bases, until instructional camp began last week.

The Tigers will hold camp through Nov. 8 and hope to craft something approaching a meaningful schedule with other ballclubs in the region. The Blue Jays were locked in Wednesday, with the Pirates set to visit Friday for another 1 p.m. game.

The Tigers were to use their starters for five innings Wednesday before giving way to a second unit.

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The starting lineup:

►Parker Meadows, right field

►Riley Greene, center field

►Spencer Torkelson, third base

►Daniel Cabrera, left field

►Kody Clemens, second base

►Ryan Kreidler, shortstop

►Cooper Johnson, catcher

►Daniel Pinero, first base.

►Wenceel Perez, DH.

Players to arrive for the sixth inning were listed as: Bryant Packard, right field; Jose De La Cruz, center field; Kingston Liniak, left field; Gage Workman, third base; Andre Lipcius, second base; Kerry Carpenter, first base; Sam McMillan, catcher; Colt Keith, DH. 

Nine pitchers were on Wednesday’s game list: Wilkel Hernandez, Alex Lange, Wladimir Pinto, Ethan DeCaster, Will Vest, Rodolfo Fajardo, Brendan White and Joseph Salazar.

Games, as well as workouts, remain closed to the public.

Lynn Henning, a former Detroit News sportswriter, is a freelance writer.