LAKELAND, Fla. >> The Tigers announced Friday that non-roster outfielder Akil Baddoo underwent surgery on Thursday to repair a hook fracture on the hamate bone in his right wrist. He is expected to miss the rest of spring training.

“He came to camp with what he described as wrist soreness,” manager AJ Hinch said. “It was eating at him a little bit. He did a couple of the early, volunteer workouts, reported it and kind of gave it a go. When we evaluated the wrist, where he was feeling the pain, we were just going to take it easy on him.

“But then the first day of full-squads when he didn’t feel great, we went and got more tests done and they revealed the hamate issue.”

The estimated recovery time for a hook excision is six weeks.

“If there is a silver lining,” Hinch said, “it’s that it happened now and he can absorb some of this in the spring and not miss too much of the season. But he’s clearly out for the spring.”

Baddoo, 26, played parts of the last four years with the Tigers. He was non-tendered after the season and signed back on a minor-league deal.

Finding fluidity

Right-hander Ty Madden has made a subtle adjustment with his hands in his delivery and the early results have been encouraging.

He looked sharp in a two-inning live bullpen session Friday.

“It was good, especially compared to the other day,” he said, referencing his first live BP. “We’re moving in the right direction. The misses are getting tighter and the shapes were what I want. I threw some good splitters, too.”

Madden stands with his hips open to the plate and then rocks into his delivery. Last year, he would bring his hands over his head before driving toward the plate. That move is gone.

“Yeah, we took away the hands over the head,” he said. “Fett (pitching coach Chris Fetter) wanted to try something to get me to feel a little more athletic on the mound. He and Robin (Lund, assistant pitching coach) were in contact with me a lot this offseason, just trying different things with my hands.

“I feel like we’re in a good spot now. I feel like my delivery has a little more flow and I feel more athletic.”

Had Friday’s session been a regulation game, though, Madden would have been cited for multiple pitch-clock violations.

“We were having pitch-com issues,” he said, laughing.

Madden is considered a longshot to make the rotation out of camp, which doesn’t faze him one bit.

“This is a competitive game and a lot of us thrive on competition,” he said. “That’s kind of why we are where we are. The only thing we can do is hit the competition head-on … Obviously, we’d all like to be in (Tarik) Skubal’s position and be locked. But he’s earned that. We haven’t earned that yet.

“It’s our job to go out and earn the right to have a rotation spot.”

Left-on-left reps

Outfielder Kerry Carpenter is getting what he asked for early in camp, plenty of reps against left-handed pitching. The lefty-swinging Carpenter faced two nasty lefties on back-to-back days of live BP — Brant Hurter Thursday and Tarik Skubal Friday.

Tough duty.

“The more he sees those guys, the better he feels,” Hinch said. “My goal for him, though, is to not make every at-bat against this spring against a lefty like Game Seven, game-winning run on second base, like the end-all, be-all. We’re going to keep an open mind to what he can do but also be very aware of keeping our optionality open.”

What Hinch wants to see is Carpenter staying in the zone, not chasing and swinging at hittable pitches. He did that earlier in the week against non-roster lefty Matt Gage and, to a lesser extent, against Hurter.

Not so much against Skubal, who limited lefties to a .186 average last season.

Now they do it

Gleyber Torres thought he was being punked.

The Tigers’ new second baseman was encircled by reporters early Friday and told that the Yankees had, at last, lifted their policy prohibiting players from growing facial hair during the season. One of the first things the former Yankee Torres did after signing with the Tigers was to grow out his beard.

“No way,” he said

They just announced it.

“Really? That’s true?”

He was assured that it was.

“Oh, well,” he said. “I am surprised.”

Would you have thought this would ever happen?

“Never.”

The Tigers will be in Torres’ old stomping grounds on Sunday, facing the Yankees at Tampa’s Steinbrenner Stadium. But Hinch said Torres won’t make the trip. He is expected to make his Tigers spring debut on Monday in Lakeland.