It was bad for Colt Keith, and then it got worse. He fought back emotions as he spoke with reporters on a Wednesday afternoon in April after striking out three times and committing a costly error in a loss to the Yankees. His misty eyes betrayed him. Keith, 23, will be the first to tell you that mistakes gnaw at him. A month ago, they appeared to be eating him up.

On April 29, Keith was in the midst of a 4-for-30 slide. He was hitting .171 in a season in which the Tigers expect him — and he expected himself — to take another step forward. In the field, he looked shaken amid a transition from second base to first. At the plate, he looked a lot like the rookie last year who struggled mightily out of the gate.

Keith hit his first homer of the season on the final day of April in a win over the Astros. He would homer again two games later, and two games after that, and three games after that. He would begin hitting the ball with authority across the field. On a Wednesday afternoon in May, he stood tall in front of his locker after drilling a two-run double in the Tigers’ 4-3 win over the Giants and said, “I feel good.”

“I’m feeling better in the field, feeling better in the box. I feel like I’m on time, able to pull the ball and also go opposite field if I need to,” said Keith. “And what really boosts my confidence is A.J. having confidence in me, being able to put me in the 3 spot. It fires me up. He’s giving me the keys to the lineup, I want to go out there and show out.”

Keith has been hitting third for the Tigers for most of the last three weeks. The numbers say he belongs. He’s touting a .913 OPS since April 30th, while shuffling between first base, second and DH. The overall stats still leave a lot to be desired, as do the underlying ones like quality of contact. But more and more, Keith is stringing together professional at-bats. His chase rate is down, his walk rate is up. He’s getting the barrel to the ball more often. The belief from Hinch has gone a long way for a young player who holds himself to an impeccably high standard.

“It’s definitely like, hey, we have the best record in the MLB and I’m batting third on that team. Like, let’s go out, let’s play well,” said Keith. “Obviously I’m doing that even if I’m batting fifth, sixth, seventh, whatever, but it’s really cool that A.J. can trust me. It’s awesome.”

After their sweep of the Giants, the Tigers don’t just lead the majors in wins. They’re tied for the lead in wins against teams with a winning record, 19-16 against clubs that are over .500. They stumbled last weekend against the Guardians, found their footing in the series finale thanks to Tarik Skubal and have regained their stride. Their offense remains somewhat volatile, but the bats made enough noise against the Giants to back up some quality pitching, especially from the bullpen.

In the first game of the series, Keith went 2-for-2 with a double and a run scored. He tripled in game two and was promptly driven home in Detroit’s second straight 3-1 win. In game three, he came to the plate with the bases loaded and the Tigers down by three in the fifth and lashed a curveball into the right-field corner to cut the deficit to one, then came around to score the go-ahead run on a clutch two-out hit by Justyn-Henry Malloy.

Asked after Wednesday’s win about Keith’s turnaround this month, Hinch said that outsiders “rode the ups and downs about him more than he rode the ups and downs.” But Keith looked awfully down in April. What didn’t fluctuate was his commitment to getting back up. And really, that’s what Hinch meant: Keith has stayed level with his work.

“He’s learning the game, he’s learning new positions, he’s learning how to hit at this level and he’s learning that it’s hard,” said Hinch. “If you look back and take a date between Opening Day and now and play it forward — obviously we can’t eliminate some of the struggles he had in April — but since May he’s been a really good hitter for us. He’s hitting right in the middle of things for a reason. He’s been good and he’s come up big.”

And oh by the way, Hinch pointed out, Keith had “never played first base until this season” and with the Tigers protecting a one-run lead in the eighth inning Wednesday, “we’re playing him at the 45-foot mark on a bunt play with (men on) second and third.”

“He’s fearless,” said Hinch. “That, to me, is really awesome, the base hits are obviously key and I think he knows he doesn’t have to be perfect, doesn’t have to carry this team, but when he does have a good game it helps the middle of that order.”

Keith will play in his 200th major league game this weekend in Kansas City. It has not been easy, not at all, for the player who signed a six-year extension with the Tigers — worth up to $82 million over nine years — before he’d taken a single swing in the bigs. Even after heating up last summer, Keith cooled off down the stretch and didn’t do much of anything in the biggest games of the year. He went 2-for-18 in the playoffs and likely shouldered it like a boulder into the offseason.

He remains hard on himself, which is what drives him to be great. At the same time, Keith has learned to narrow his view within the scope of a big-league season. Not long ago, he probably felt like April would never end. Now that rut is a distant memory. This game is hard enough. The grind is “impossible,” said Keith, if you start thinking too far ahead.

“We’re not even in June yet, but if I start thinking about, we have 100 games left and how hard or how easy that could be depending on what just happened on the field, for me, I’m trying to just focus on what I can do that day,” he said. “Make sure I’m locked in for that game, not thinking about off-days, not thinking about how many we have in a row. Just focus on being prepared to face that guy, that day.

“And personally, if I make an error, or if I have a bad game at the plate, being able to flush it is definitely going to be a big tool for me in the future. I have a tough time with that, holding onto bad games, but the more I have under my belt, the better I’m getting at it. I’m getting into 200 games in the big leagues, so I’m realizing this is going to be a marathon not a sprint.”