LAKELAND, Fla. — Oft-injured Detroit Tigers prospect Franklin Perez looks healthy and continues to impress coaches and players early in spring training.

“We have a lot of really top prospects, which has been talked about an awful lot,” manager Ron Gardenhire said. “But (pitching coach Rick Anderson) said watching (Perez) throw his pens, he could be the top prospect if he can stay healthy because the ball really comes out of his hand.”

And it was really coming out of his hand Thursday morning on a back field.

“I mean, it’s pretty powerful,” Gardenhire said. "That’s encouraging. If we can just keep him on the mound, hopefully he can get his way through this and he’s past all of that other (injury) stuff with his shoulder.”

Perez, once viewed as the gem of the Justin Verlander trade, has been hurt so much that you almost forget about him.

But if he can stay healthy, it would change the trajectory of this rebuild.

It would be like getting another first-round draft pick.

“He’s got great stuff,” Gardenhire said.

Cameron Maybin faced Perez on Thursday.

“He looked real good,” he said. “I didn’t see any curves from him but his change-up looked really, really good.”

Christin Stewart was also impressed. “His stuff was good today,” he said. “He was 'round the zone. He was throwing his off-speed for strikes. His fastball had late movement.”

Manning 'was unreal'

Matt Manning also received approving assessments pitching to catcher Jake Rogers.

“He was unreal," he said.” That’s the first time I’ve caught him in a while, and he was unreal. It was something special — it’s always good to catch him.”

Maybin echoed those comments.

“I thought he had really good stuff — tall, big arm, good command this early,” he said. “He’s straight down and I think he’s working on staying taller. Today, he was throwing downhill.”

Stewart singled to right off Manning. “Manning was throwing a little bit harder than Perez,” he said.

Skub-dog

Tarik Skubal is scheduled to start Friday against Southeastern University at Joker Marchant Stadium.

“We got the big, burly left-hander on the mound," Gardenhire said. "Skub-dog.”

Rogers was scheduled to start the game behind the plate, but he has a stiff back.

“Rogers has a little bit of a stiff back, so we took him out,” Gardenhire said.

Johnny (BP) good

Pitcher John Schreiber was pleased with his performance Thursday.

“I felt a lot better than the last live BP,” he said. “Pitch types and spins were looking good, they had the movement I wanted.”

Tickets

Tigers single-game tickets will go on sale Friday. Opening Day tickets start at $20, and most other games start at $15.

Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @seideljeff. To read his recent columns, go to freep.com/sports/jeff-seidel/.