PITTSBURGH -- Troy Melton listened intently to Tigers pitching coach Chris Fetter’s instructions. With Melton’s pitch count approaching 90 with two outs in the fifth inning, he was likely on his last batter in his Major League debut. Up stepped veteran outfielder Tommy Pham, who has taught a lesson to plenty of young pitchers in his career.
Melton pounded the outside corner, hoping to coax a whiff out of a pesky Pirate whose low chase rate ranks in the 91st percentile this season. Pham didn’t chase the first-pitch slider in the dirt, but after Melton spotted a 96 mph sinker on the corner, he tossed back-to-back sliders, breaking up his pitch mixing. Pham fanned on them both, the latter on the corner.
While Pham threw his bat to the ground in frustration, Melton walked back to the dugout and shook manager A.J. Hinch’s outstretched hand. Melton struck out five of his final seven batters, all of them swinging, to finish his five-inning performance with seven strikeouts, the most by a Tiger in his Major League debut since Casey Mize fanned seven White Sox on Aug. 19, 2020.
“All the shapes were good,” catcher Dillon Dingler said. “I know he was pretty amped up as everyone in his situation would've been, but I was impressed with how he carried himself and what he has to offer for us. I think it's going to be really good.”
The bad news for the Tigers was that Melton’s best stretch of pitching came with the game pretty well decided. The way Detroit struggled for big innings throughout this week-long road trip, Spencer Horwitz’s second-inning grand slam felt like a dagger to the Tigers’ hopes of ending the trip on a high note, the eventual 6-1 loss seemingly set.
“Once you get punched in the face early, all you're trying to do is eat innings and [make sure] you're not putting your team behind the eight-ball for the rest of the week,” Melton said. “All I was trying to do was make pitches and get quick outs, and if that translated into strikeouts at the end there, it's a bonus, I guess.”
Short term, it’s another Tigers loss, just with a different face on the mound. Longer term, Wednesday was a preview of what Melton – the Tigers’ No. 10 prospect – can do for a team that could use some pitching help, especially with strikeouts.
“I think my expectations are just for him to settle in now and learn,” Hinch said. “It's not going to be the last guy he walks. It's not going to be the last homer he gives up. But it's important for him to take a deep breath after a really emotional and important day for him.
“I think he's a very calm pitcher. He's emotional enough because he's excitable and wants to do well. He should take away from the day that he's a big leaguer forever. It's just a rough start to his career. But a lot of promise to it.”
The emotional swing was encapsulated in two batters. Three pitches before Horwitz’s slam, Melton executed a beautiful sequence for his first Major League strikeout, getting a swing on a first-pitch slider in the dirt, then putting a 99 mph fastball on the plate. With an 0-2 count and Isiah Kiner-Falefa guessing what’s next, Melton spotted a curveball on the inside edge, drawing a punch from home-plate umpire Adam Beck.
Not only did Melton have his first strikeout, he had a path to escape.
“When you get to two outs, you kinda feel the energy switching to your favor,” Melton said. “So that was my only goal going into the at-bat.”
Melton missed with the first-pitch cutter down. Horwitz didn’t miss with the second-pitch cutter over the middle.
“Cutter backdoor, it leaked a little bit,” Dingler said. “But Horwitz is hot right now. He was doing that to us all week.”
Combined with Andrew McCutchen’s first-inning solo homer, in which he ambushed a first-pitch fastball, it was a 5-0 Pirates lead.
“It is what it is,” Melton said. “The only thing that I was really upset with was the two walks in that inning that set it up.”
The Pirates hit eight balls off Melton with 100-plus mph exit velocities, including Bryan Reynolds’ leadoff double in the third that set up Oneil Cruz’s sac fly for Pittsburgh’s final tally. But Melton drew 14 whiffs and 13 called strikes across six pitch types.
“I was glad that he didn't go away from his offspeed because Horwitz hit the homer,” Hinch said. “Things could have sped up on him and he could have changed the way he approached it, but he stayed disciplined to his best stuff and he showed it all today. That's a good sign.”