Drayage Brokersin Detroit, MI

The Detroit Lions surprised a lot of people this offseason by moving on from their top two running backs after the duo produced an above-average rushing attack in 2022. Jamaal Williams set a franchise record with 17 rushing touchdowns, while D’Andre Swift added 931 scrimmage yards and eight touchdowns of his own. In total, the Lions finished 11th in rushing yards and 15th in yards per carry.

But Lions' general manager believes the team improved their running back corps by adding David Montgomery in free agency and using the 12th overall pick on former Alabama running back Jahmyr Gibbs.

“When you look at it just systematically, I do think that we’ll be better offensively,” Holmes said during his fantastic podcast with Peter Schrager. “And that’s no knock on the contributions that those other two guys gave us because Swift is a dynamic player, and Jamaal, you know, he was a great leader for us and he did so much for us and he had a great season.”

Montgomery comes to Detroit after four decent seasons with the Chicago Bears. While his career rushing stats are nearly identical to Williams, Holmes noted how he—and Gibbs—will both be improvements as receiving backs.

“I think Montgomery and Jamaal are different backs. You know, Montgomery does a little bit more in the passing game,” Holmes said. “And being able to add Gibbs, you know, I think he’s just so dynamic as a receiver, and look, he’s a home-run hitter as a running back, I mean, that’s the easy part. But what he does as a receiver, I mean, he runs routes, I mean, like a receiver.”

In college, Gibbs displayed just how dangerous of a threat he can be as a receiver. He led all Alabama receivers in 2022 with 44 catches and was third in receiving yards (465) for Georgia Tech the previous season. His route running skills remind Holmes of one of the best running backs in the game today.

“When Christian McCaffrey came out, he was like the last guy I was like, “Holy cow, like this guy can run routes like a slot receiver, but also run it,’” Holmes said. “So you start getting reminders of some of those players. I’m not sitting here saying that Jahmyr Gibbs is those players, but, you know, just a special weapon like that. We have a lot of excitement and optimism.”

Another reason for optimism in the offense is the return of Ben Johnson. After the 37-year-old offensive coordinator was instrumental in Detroit’s fifth-ranked offense in 2022, he opted to return to the Lions even though it appeared there were head coaching opportunities available. Holmes believes expectations for Johnson are even higher in Year 2, now that he’s settled in nicely with Jared Goff.

“I think last year he showed everybody, ‘I can do this, like, I’m legit,’” Holmes said. “But having that experience under his belt, going into Year 2, having Jared [Goff] with him going into Year 2, and then all the other components that we added in free agency and the draft, that’s why I feel better about why we’d be better offensively.”

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Pink took more than 45,000 fans on a two-hour pop rollercoaster ride Wednesday night, notching a ballpark attendance record as she did it.

Her whirling, twirling barrage of rock-edged hits was the latest stop on her Summer Carnival tour, an outing that has taken her arena-honed stagecraft to stadiums worldwide.

On a lovely summer night downtown, Pink staged her first-ever Detroit stadium show and her first concert here since a Little Caesars Arena doubleheader in 2019. With her sellout crowd of 45,000-plus, she set a benchmark for the biggest reserved-seat attendance in the ballpark’s 23-year history, besting acts such as the Rolling Stones, Billy Joel and Elton John.

Appearing in a filmed, Max Headroom-style video segment before taking the stage, Pink promised “a cornucopia of pleasures.” For the multigenerational audience packing the Tigers’ house, she certainly delivered.

It was an entertaining, often exhilarating swirl of aerial stunts, whimsical oversized stage props, cinematic dance numbers and barrages of neon and Day-Glo — a tricked-out show from an artist with a likable, unpretentious presence. Pink is a polished, stage-commanding performer who would just happen to be the chatty life of the party at your suburban backyard cookout.

She’s also the rare pop artist who has scaled new heights even as she has arrived in her 40s, now more than two decades removed from the young act who broke through alongside turn-of-the-millennium peers such as Christina Aguilera and ‘N Sync.

The show’s first act was a breathless 25-minute run through some of the 43-year-old pop star’s biggest smashes and most infectious hooks: “Get the Party Started,” “Raise Your Glass,” “Who Knew,” “Just Like a Pill,” Try,” “What About Us.”

But the well of hits was far from dry, and Wednesday’s show kept them coming up through the dazzling finale, when “So What” found the harnessed singer hurtling around the ballpark at perhaps 100 feet overhead. It was high enough that folks who’d been listening from the roof of the nearby Detroit Athletic Club at last got a chance to glimpse the airborne star.

Opener Brandi Carlile described Pink as “the hardest working woman in show business,” and the headliner did her best to live up to that billing in a vigorous, sweaty affair that began with a high-wire bungee entrance.

“Please enjoy this makeup for about half another song,” Pink told the crowd early in her set.

The show’s few low-key moments came with their own rewards, including a largely acoustic third act that included a poignant “When I Get There” and a cute cameo from Pink’s 12-year-old daughter, Willow, who joined in on her mom’s homemade pandemic song “Cover Me in Sunshine.”

Pink took to a grand piano to lend her hearty vocals to a rendition of Bob Dylan’s latter-day classic “Make You Feel My Love,” soon turning up the heat as she morphed her guitar-driven “Just Like Fire” into a searing cover of Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker.”

The set also featured a rarity: an acoustic performance of 2001’s “Don’t Let Me Get Me.”

“Trustfall” – a bounding song accompanied by eye-catching trampoline stunts from her athletic backing troupe – was a highlight among the several songs plucked from her February album of the same name, while the warmly melodic “Last Call” was a stealth winner during the encore. But it was “Never Gonna Not Dance Again,” an effervescent, funk-gilded anthem, that truly stood out among the newer stuff, providing a potent punctuation mark to close the regular set.

Carlile, playing her first Detroit show in seven years, opened the evening with a dependably rich, emotionally textured set that only made you hope she gets back here for a full headlining concert sooner than later.

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.

MINNEAPOLIS — Spencer Torkelson might have jinxed Riley Greene with just two words.

"Cycle watch," Torkelson said he told his teammate during Wednesday's 8-7 win over the Minnesota Twins at Target Field.

Greene, a double away from hitting for the cycle for the first time since high school, stepped to the plate in the ninth inning, following a home run in the third, a single in the fifth and a triple in the seventh against the American League Central leaders.

"I didn't know at first," Greene said, "and then somebody said something to me."

TAPPING THE TWINS:Detroit Tigers get bombs from Spencer Torkelson, Kerry Carpenter to beat Twins, 8-7

FAEDO GOES FARTHER:Changeups to right-handed hitters can 'make me a lot better'

With a runner on third base, Greene sent a fifth-pitch curveball 382 feet to center field, with a 101.8 mph exit velocity. Unfortunately for Greene, it was lofted enough for center fielder Joey Gallo to track it down to his right. A run scored on the sacrifice fly, but Greene's cycle hopes would have to wait for another day.

It was about all that went wrong for Greene and teammates Torkelson and Kerry Carpenter on Wednesday.

The hype surrounding the trio of Carpenter, Greene and Torkelson — three 25-and-under position players in the middle of the Detroit Tigers' batting order — has picked up steam recently, enough to consider a Big 3 is brewing in the Motor City.

Greene is batting .309 with 11 home runs in 84 games this season; Torkelson, who has six homers in his past seven games — including two Wednesday — is batting .230 with 21 home runs in 118 games; and Carpenter is batting .286 with 16 home runs — including one Wednesday — in 77 games.

All three players made their MLB debuts in the 2022 season, and despite some bumps along the way, the future of the Tigers offense looks brighter than ever before heading into the final 42 games of the 2023 season.

"We definitely are feeling good about that," Torkelson said of the future. "We also know that it's a long way to go. It's not like we've made it already. We're still taking it one day at a time. It's nice to get some results, but we're nowhere near where we think we're going to be."

Torkelson, Greene and Carpenter put on a spectacular show in Wednesday's come-from-behind victory, combining to drive in seven of the eight runs, smack four home runs and collect hits in seven of 13 at-bats.

It felt like the official coming-out party for the Big 3.

"It's exciting," said Carpenter, a 19th-round pick in 2019. "Tork and Riley are two of the really good young players. What is Riley, like 22 or something? He's hitting .300 in the best league in the world. It's pretty exciting to be a part of it with them, and it's fun for us three to be in the middle together."

FROM MAY:Riley Greene is carrying the Tigers and finally unlocking pull-side power

Even Greene's lack of a cycle was a positive event. Rather than trying for a double, Greene took an unselfish approach to the plate and provided a crucial insurance run.

An on-the-run Gallo caught the ball at the warning track in center field. If the ball had dropped, Greene might have had his choice of a double for the cycle or the first two-triple game of his career.

"It depends on where it would have landed," Greene said. "I think, if that ball kept going, it would have bounced over the fence, so it just depends on where it was. The skipper always says to play the game, and that's what I'm going to do."

A few days ago in Boston, Torkelson — the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 draft — had a single in the second inning, a single in the fourth, a home run in the sixth and a double in the eighth.

Apparently, Greene — the No. 5 overall pick in the 2019 draft — mentioned something to Torkelson, who was a triple shy of the cycle, after his 25th double of the season.

"He did that to me, too," Torkelson said.

Torkelson, though, didn't get a fifth plate appearance in Saturday's 6-2 win over the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

After hearing the allegation, Greene smiled while defending himself — "I don't think I said anything" — and playfully shouted towards Torkelson's locker in the visitor's clubhouse at Target Field.

"I have feel," Greene said, staring down his best friend on the team. "I have feel about that kind of stuff."

FROM JUNE:We might be seeing the beginning of Spencer Torkelson's breakthrough for Tigers

All jokes aside, Greene (22 until late September), Torkelson (23 until next week) and Carpenter (25 until early September) are playing the best baseball of their MLB careers. The combination of approach changes, swing changes and experience has guided them to what is shaping up to be a breakthrough finish to 2023.

In Wednesday's game, Torkelson blasted a pair of no-doubt solo homers. He hit a first-pitch curveball for a 432-foot homer in the third inning off right-handed starter Kenta Maeda, then a third-pitch sweeper for a 405-foot homer in the seventh inning off right-handed reliever Griffin Jax.

Torkelson missed out on the first three-homer game of his career with a 363-foot flyout to left field in the ninth inning. It would have been a home run in four of 30 MLB parks: Chicago's Wrigley Field, Houston's Minute Maid Park, Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park and San Diego's Petco Park.

He has 42 games to hit nine more home runs and achieve a rare milestone for a Tiger: 30 homers. No Tiger has reached 30 since Miguel Cabrera in 2016, and no Tiger has hit 30 in his age-23 season (or younger) since Matt Nokes' 32 homers at age 23 in 1987.

"We're better players than we were last year at this time," Torkelson said. "And then, we're understanding the league and how guys are pitching us. We're understanding the approach that we have against guys. In the scouting report, we look at what the guy throws and how they're going to attack us.

"The last question is, how are we going to do damage off him? We're not going to look for his best pitch to get a single on it. We're going to look at where his best pitch makes a mistake that we can do damage on. We're getting better information, and we're using that."

Better information?

Remember, the Tigers revamped the hitting department in the offseason when manager A.J. Hinch fired hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh and hired a trio of hitting coaches to replace him: Michael Brdar, Keith Beauregard and James Rowson.

"We have the same access to all the information, but it's how we interpret it," Torkelson said. "What I look at in the scouting report is different than what Carp and Greeney look at. It's a more individualized approach rather than a bunch of information on a sheet (of paper). I can look at all this stuff and not know what works for me, but I know what I like to take from it."

FROM AUGUST:One year after MLB debut, Kerry Carpenter looks like big part of Tigers' future

Since June 4, Torkelson is hitting .226 (55-for-243) with 17 home runs and a .796 OPS over 63 games; in his past seven games, he is hitting .346 (9-for-26) with six home runs.

Greene, who hit .365 across 25 games in May before suffering a stress reaction in his left fibula, is hitting .331 (40-for-121) with six home runs and a .949 OPS in 32 games since his July 8 return from the injured list.

Like Greene, Carpenter spent time on the injured list earlier this season. He returned from a right shoulder sprain June 9, and in 57 games since then, he is hitting .311 (59-for-190) with 12 home runs and a .914 OPS.

"It's not necessarily keeping it in the box that you see on TV," Carpenter said, echoing Torkelson's explanation of the scouting reports. "There are some pitches out of the zone that I can handle, specifically lower pitches. I'm OK with chasing down there, but I really don't want to chase high or inside. It's just knowing what I handle well."

Each player has a large sample size of elite success.

That's an encouraging sign for the future.

"We come out here and play our hearts out," Greene said. "This is what we love to do. Whenever we're on the field, we're going to play as hard as we possibly can. ... We're a team, and we're going to play hard every single day."

The singer took her acrobatics to new heights at Wednesday night's concert.

Pop singer Pink took flight in Detroit on Wednesday night, flying through the air like a real life Tinkerbell over a sold out, largely pink-clad crowd of 45,000 fans at Comerica Park.

That's no metaphor. "I'm coming to see y'all in the back!" the acrobatic pop dynamo announced to the crowd near the close of the show, and come see them she did.

Attached to a harness that was rigged to wires around the open air stadium, she launched herself from the stage and hit the nighttime sky high above the infield, then twirling and flipping and walking on air over the upper deck stands while performing her monster hit "So What." Fans whipped out their phones and tried their best to capture the moment that was unlike anything the 23-year-old ballpark had ever seen.

It was the showstopping capper to an energetic two-hour set of uplifting pop, performed in front of what was a record-setting crowd for a reserved seating concert at the Tigers' home, according to venue officials.

Pink, a 20-plus year pop veteran — her debut album was released just four months after the turn of the millennium — showed off her rock stardom and her rock moves over the course of some two dozen songs, opening the show with an impressive string of hits from her peak period, which stretched from the early '00s to the early '10s.

Those songs — opener "Get the Party Started," "Raise Your Glass," "Who Knew," "Just Like a Pill," "Try," "What About Us" — show off Pink at her best, a mix of strength and vulnerability, humor and toughness, all spiked with a healthy dose of rock star punch and attitude.

Her stage set was like a Las Vegas pool party, mixing pop kitsch and punk flair. There was an oversize ice cream cone with spikes protruding from it in the corner of the stage, animated dolphins with mohawks on the gigantic video screens, and neon flamingo scooters that her dancers rode out onto the catwalk. (Somewhere, Katy Perry is checking to see if someone raided her prop closet.)

Pink, 43, was at the center of it all, and there was never a moment when she didn't look like the happiest person on stage, and in all of Comerica Park, for that matter. Whether she was air guitaring, laughing with her band members or dodging bugs — the latter of which was most of the night — her giddiness shined through, as did her talent, her natural charisma and her shimmering stage presence.

The singer, whose given name is Alecia Moore, was upside down above the stage just moments after her arrival at just before 9 p.m. She entered through a giant gaping mouth fixed to the top of the set, and while suspended from a bungee cord, she bounced in the air before touching down on the stage below.

Flipping while singing (and panting afterward, so you know her vocals were real and her mic was live), Pink proved unflappable, and she gave back every bit of energy she received from the crowd.

During "Try," she made her way to both sides of the large stage, climbing over a barrier to get as close to the fans as possible. You get the picture she would have jumped into the stands and even climbed the left field foul pole if that sort of thing was deemed okay to do.

She shared several mom moments on stage, including opening up a pack of Twizzlers, eating one and tossing the rest into the crowd, commenting that the stage was the only place she could eat candy without having to share it with her kids.

She also played the role of proud mama, duetting with her 12-year-old daughter, Willow Sage Hart, on "Cover Me in Sunshine," a song from her 2021 live album, "All I Know So Far: Setlist."

Several covers were worked into her set, including Sade's "No Ordinary Love," Pat Benatar's "Heartbreaker" (bits of which were sprinkled into "Just Like Fire") and Bob Dylan's (via Adele's) "To Make You Feel My Love." "Don't Let Me Get Me," meanwhile, was given the stripped down treatment alongside her guitarist, for the first time in what she explained was a long time.

The crowd started waning a bit during a late-show stretch of songs, including several from February's "Trustfall" set, but fans knew she had her aerial tricks in her back pocket and ready to go. She used them sparingly — the acrobatics complimented the show without overtaking it — but the final flight over the crowd was pure magic. For as happy as the looks were on the faces of fans, no one was beaming more than Pink herself, whose smile was as pure and as bright as the light dancing off of her sparkly boots as she glided through the air.

It was Comerica Park's first and only concert of 2023, following a busy 2022, and fireworks exploded in the sky above the ballpark at the close of the evening, as they did throughout Pink's headlining set.

Earlier in the night, Grammy darling Brandi Carlile powered through a set of soulful rock tunes, including a cover of Radiohead's "Creep" and a sliver of Sam Smith and Kim Petras' "Unholy," at her biggest Detroit concert to date and first area concert since a 2019 appearance at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival.

Los Angeles alt-rockers Grouplove opened the night, and KidCutUp performed an entertaining series of genre-bending mashups between acts.

agraham@detroitnews.com

Jeff Petry is on the move -- again.

The veteran defenseman was traded from Montreal to Detroit on Tuesday, in exchange for defenseman Gustav Lindstrom and a conditional fourth-round draft pick in 2025. The Canadiens also retained 50% of the salary remaining on Petry's contract -- working out to approximately $2.4 million -- which runs through 2024-25.

It was the third trade involving Petry over the past 13 months. This move came just 10 days after Montreal acquired Petry from Pittsburgh as part of the blockbuster three-team trade that sent reigning Norris Trophy-winning defenseman Erik Karlsson from San Jose to the Penguins. The Canadiens took on 75% of Petry's salary (Pittsburgh retained the other 25%), goaltender Casey DeSmith and prospect Nathan Legare in the deal.

That situation alone was a full-circle moment of sorts for Petry, who spent the bulk of his NHL career -- over the course of eight seasons -- patrolling Montreal's blue line before the Canadiens traded him to Pittsburgh in July 2022. Petry recorded five goals and 31 points in 61 games for the Penguins last season.

While Petry is past his prime as a top-four blueliner, he still wields a solid defensive upside and projects to be a strong locker room presence for the Red Wings. And it's a homecoming for Petry, too; a native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Petry went on to spend three seasons suiting up for Michigan State before graduating to the pros.

Going the other way to Montreal is Lindstrom. A second-round draft choice by Detroit in 2017, Lindstrom, 24, has two goals and 25 points in 128 NHL games to date. He'll add depth to the Red Wings' back end heading into training camp.

The conditional fourth-round draft choice also going to Detroit will be the later of Montreal's two selections that season; the Canadiens currently have their own pick and one acquired in a previous deal with Boston.