Baltimore — Not much on Troy Melton’s shoulders as he made his season debut Sunday night.
The Orioles punched the Tigers in the face in the first game of the doubleheader, walking off Kenley Jansen with a two-out, two-strike, three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth.
That meant Melton was carrying the weight of an eight-game losing streak, not to mention the accompanying 2-19 skid and the MLB-worst 7-21 road record and everything else the Tigers have been grinding through this month.
Not heavy at all.
“Honestly, I tried not to think about it at all,” Melton said. “Just tried to make pitches as best I can.”
Fresh off a four-month convalescence to first calm the inflammation in his right elbow and then rebuild his arm strength, Melton subdued the Orioles for 5.2 innings and the Tigers sluffed off the streak with a 4-1 win at Camden Yards.
The music was back up in the clubhouse, as were the smiles, the shouts and the laughter. It was going to be a happy flight home.
“The biggest thing was, we got punched in the face in Game 1,” said Kevin McGonigle, who saved two runs with his glove and delivered the biggest hit of the game. “Noone was happy about that. But everyone was prepared to go back out for the second game. We did a great job of using Game 1 as fuel and we just kept playing hard.”
BOX SCORE: Tigers 4, Orioles 1
Melton allowed just two hits, both singles, and two of his three strikeouts came against Orioles’ All-Star Gunnar Henderson.
“He was huge,” said catcher Dillon Dingler, whose two-run homer in first inning gave Melton an early cushion. “We used a lot of our arms in the first game and for him to go out like he did was awesome. All the shapes were there. He was just like he left off at the end of last year. It’s huge having him back.”
Three walks caused what little distress he had.
“There were some things I didn’t think I did very well,” Melton said. “I didn’t get into counts very well. Three walks are too many for my liking. There was a leadoff walk that came around to score. I have some things to clean up, but I can’t be too mad at the result.”
Mostly, he was sharp and efficient. He needed just 37 pitches to get through three innings and 65 to get through five. His four-seam fastball was ringing in between 96 and 98 mph, and he was deftly mixing sliders and splitters to lefties, sinkers and cutters to right-handers.
“That helped us out a lot,” manager AJ Hinch said of Melton’s efficiency. “Going in we thought we could get five innings and 70-ish pitches. He was coming in probably one start shy of a normal spring training, yet he came in and pounded the zone and challenged the other side in the strike zone. Welcome back. It’s so nice to have his calmness, but also his competitiveness and of course his stuff.”
The Orioles lone run came in the fourth after Melton walked Adley Rutschman to start the inning. A single by Pete Alonso advanced him to third and he scored on a sacrifice fly by Samuel Basallo.
Impressive work, much-needed work.
“It’s no secret we haven’t been playing our best,” Melton said. “And the way Game 1 ended, it’s hard. We’re going through the hard part of our season right now. Hopefully we can build off this one and make sure we keep putting ourselves in a good position the rest of the season.”
Lefty Tyler Holton, who has endured three losses and allowed six runs (four earned) in his last four games, got four straight outs, with two strikeouts, to get the game to the eighth. Importantly, too, he forced a decision point for the Orioles in the seventh.
Manager Craig Albernaz used right-handed pinch-hitter Tyler O’Neill for Colton Cowser, who hit the walk-off homer in Game 1. Holton struck him out and it was O’Neill who came up in the ninth with two runners on instead of the left-handed hitting Cowser against right-hander Drew Anderson.
“Tyler was able to get two right-handed hitters and set up Drew perfectly,” Hinch said.
With Jansen, Kyle Finnegan and Will Vest all working in Game 1, it fell to Anderson to lock it down.
It wasn’t easy. Of course it wasn’t easy. Nothing has been easy for the Tigers. Anderson pitched around a one-out single in the eighth, but walked the first two batters in the ninth to bring the tying run to the plate.
Anderson struck out Leodys Taveras, O’Neill and Blaze Alexander to earn his second save.
“Getting the win before the off day, especially after getting punched in the face, that’s a really good feeling,” Hinch said. “We need to get home and capitalize on these good vibes and the music playing and the guys being excited. We’re used to that, we just haven’t had that in a while.”
Dingler’s 10th homer of the season, off lefty Trevor Rogers, was the kickstart. McGonigle’s knock in the fifth was the kill shot.
Spencer Torkelson walked to start the fifth. Wenceel Perez followed with a single and with one out, No. 9 hitter Zack Short walked to load the bases. Rogers got Matt Vierling to foul out for the second out and he got ahead of McGonigle 1-2.
“Honestly, me seeing him the two times before helped,” said McGonigle, who worked the count full. “I chased a sweeper away, almost in the other batter’s box, the previous at-bat. I just tried to shrink the zone. Two outs and the bases loaded, I had to come through. I got to 3-2 and he threw me a changeup. I thought it was going to be a heater but I was able to push it out to center field.”
In the second inning, McGonigle saved one if not two runs with a leaping catch of a 107-mph line drive by Alexander. And the line drive, two-out, two-run single proved to be the clutch knock needed to break the funk.
“Rogers is good against lefties and he’s mixing in sweepers that he doesn’t throw to too many guys and here he is throwing it to Kevin,” Hinch said. “And Kevin hadn’t seen left-on-left changeups like Rogers throws it. We talk about this game being full of adjustments and here is this 21-year-old showing you how do to it.
“It was really nice to see.”
Off the schneid, at last.
“It’s just feels good to get back in the win column,” Torkelson said. “We have to keep it rolling. We let (Game 1) sting for about 15 minutes and it was like, ‘All right, let’s go.’ Normally you have to wait a whole day to get it back. Now we got to go out and win in a couple of hours. I loved that we took that mindset into this game.”
Said Dingler: “You have to. If we’re going to sit here and dwell on a game like that, we’re not going to be a good baseball team. Especially in that situation, that was an extreme situation, losing a close one in that fashion and we have to go back out two hours later. But we came out just like we needed to.”
Chris.McCosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Troy Melton helps Tigers bounce back to win nightcap vs. Orioles
Reporting by Chris McCosky, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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