Detroit — Every loss feels devasting for the Tigers these days. But this last one might leave a mark.
“Our psyche is in battle mode right now, no matter what,” said manager AJ Hinch after the Tigers lost opener of a three-game series to the Houston Astros, 2-1, Thursday night at Comerica Park. I don’t think we can let up in any way and we haven’t.”
On a night when Troy Melton flirted with perfection into the sixth inning, the Tigers managed just three singles while striking out 13 times through eight innings. Ten of the strikeouts came against Astros’ right-hander Tatsuya Imai, who entered the game with a 6.15 ERA.
Dillon Dingler’s 19th home run in the bottom of the ninth was the first and only spark.
“Ideally, we want to hit well when our pitchers do well,” said Colt Keith. “Seems like a lot of this year it’s been opposite. Troy did well. It sucks we couldn’t capitalize on that start and get a win.”
After winning the first four games on this homestand, they’ve lost three straight.
This one felt extra wasteful.
Melton, who gave up a home run to the first batter he faced in his last start and nothing else over six innings, dispatched the first 16 Astros in a row.
“I was aware of it early,” Melton said. “After the two one-two-three innings, I thought about it before the third. But I was most happy about the two-strike execution. I had four strikeouts in two innings. I became aware of it but I wasn’t trying to change anything.”
The fun stopped when Melton left a slider up over the plate with one out in the sixth and Astros’ centerfielder Taylor Trammell hooked it just inside the foul pole in right field for his second home run this season.
“If you’re going to nitpick, it was in the zone,” he said of the pitch. “It was 0-1 and I wanted to throw a strike there. It could’ve been more away or more down, but it’s not like I hung it high. I’d like to have made a better pitch but if I throw a lot of them there, I don’t think that would be the result too often.”
Once it left Trammell’s bat, Melton knew it was gone.
“I didn’t think it was going to go foul; I was hoping it would go foul,” he said. “It wasn’t a cheap homer. I was just really hoping the wind took it somewhere.”
It was abundantly clear right from the start that Melton brought his top-shelf stuff.
The velocity on all his pitches was up, especially on his four-seam fastball, which he was ripping at 97, 98 and 99 in the first inning. His cutter, too, was hitting 95 mph.
“Yesterday I did something small mechanically and it felt really good in catch play,” Melton said. “And it felt good in catch play today before my bullpen. I wanted to come out with more of an emphasis on the first inning. That’s probably been my worst inning. Just setting a tone from the start was the key for me. It’s easier to keep that momentum rolling rather than trying to reach back later when I wanted extra.”
The adjustment, he said, was in his posture, just standing up straighter and driving more directly toward the plate.
“My mechanics were just in a slightly better place,” he said. “And everything was coming out better.”
Even after 88 pitches, Melton’s velocity ticked up on all of his pitches. His four-seam fastball was up 1.3 mph to 97, his cutter up 2.3 mph to 93, his slider up 2.8 to 88.5 and his sinker up 1.3 mph to 96.
Hitting 95 with his cutter was eye-popping.
“Nasty,” Hinch said. “They would show the replay and there were some pretty big misses.”
He struck out six and got 15 whiffs on 51 swings. The homer by Trammell was the only hard-hit ball against him.
“I thought he was excellent,” Hinch said. “He was in full attack mode from the get-go. He was as good as we’ve seen.”
Too good to leave the game trailing. Too good to lose.
But the Tigers had no answer for the two-pitch riddles Imai was spinning. Riley Greene’s two-out single in the fourth and Kevin McGonigle’s one-out single in the sixth were the only hits they could muster.
Leaning heaving on his slider (he threw 50 of them) and mixing in well-spotted four-seamers, he struck out 10. The Tigers whiffed 14 times on 23 swings at his slider and took 10 fastballs for strikes.
“He had varying breaks (on the slider),” Keith said. “Sometimes it had more depth, sometimes it had a cutter feel, sometimes it backed up. You never knew where he was going with it or where it was going to end up. That’s why he got us chasing.”
Extra frustrating for the Tigers, the Astros’ bullpen was taxed. None of their left-handed relievers, including closer Josh Hader, were available. The Tigers got all the left-on-right matchups they wanted but not enough materialized against AJ Blubaugh and Enyel De Los Santos.
“Imai did them a solid by going as deep as he did,” Hinch said. “They were going to have to ride him a little bit and we just couldn’t piece any at-bats together.”
The home runs ended up cancelling each other out. The Astros’ ability to piece three at-bats together in the ninth against Kenley Jansen was the difference in the game. Jeremy Pena singled, stole second, went to third on ground out and scored on a sacrifice fly by Isaac Paredes.
All losses count the same in the standings, but it feels like this one might leave a deeper bruise on the Tigers’ psyche.
“Our psyche is fine,” Hinch said. “Our ability to bounce back tomorrow will be key.”
The Tigers, at the statistical midpoint of the season, are 16 games worse (34-47) than they were at the 81-game mark last year.
“It’s the same as we’ve been doing every day,” Keith said. “Go out and try to win a ballgame every night. All of us are grinding, trying to get wins. We know the situation we’re in. We’re not dumb. We’re just going to keep going out and trying to get wins every night.”
Chris.McCosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Tigers drop opener in pitching duel against Astros
Reporting by Chris McCosky, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Chris McCosky, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
