Gleyber Torres injury update: Detroit Tigers 2B activated from IL

CHICAGO - The Detroit Tigers activated second baseman Gleyber Torres from the injured list and sent catcher Eduardo Valencia to Triple-A Toledo on Monday, July 20. Torres will bat second and play second base when the Tigers open a three-game series against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. The game was scheduled to start at 8:05 ET, but entered a weather delay before then. "I love getting Gleyber back,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said before Monday's game. “He feels good, and that's always a good start. I think we're a different team with him in the lineup, and then certainly the top of our lineup, it just gets longer.” Torres has been dealing with an oblique strain for much of this season. He went on the injured list earlier this season, went through recovery and then strained it again. Torres, an All-Star starter last season, is hitting .280 with a .790 OPS in 43 games this year. "Feels good," Torres said. "Really happy, excited to be back. The injury sucks, and see your buddies play. It's really a struggle, but now feel better than the last time, and yeah, just excited to be back.”\ That’s one of the keys. He wasn’t fully recovered the last time he came back. "It's better than the last time," he said. "Just make sure don't get the same injury in the same place. But yeah, excited. You know, really good couple weeks for us, and you know, hopefully I can do the job and help the team." “We'll ease him back in,” Hinch said. “He may not play every single day for, you know, the next 10 days or however many games we have in a row, but big boost up for us.” Monday's game was the Tigers' fourth in four days after the All-Star Game, part of a 13-in-13-days stretch to open the second half. The Tigers' next day off isn't until July 30. Valencia made a great impression in a short time, hitting a pair of home runs during his 13 plate appearances over six games. “We had a decision to make on whether to keep positional flexibility or the extra right-handed bat, and I just told him he's going to be back,” Hinch said. “I mean, he did everything that we asked when he came up. … It was a great experience for him, being young on the roster and getting your first taste of the big leagues. There's a little bit of back and forth when the roster gets healthy, but he's gonna work his way into our mix more routinely with the way that he played and being able to cover us as a right-handed bat, either behind the plate or at first or off the bench.”