Tigers nearly – Troy Melton retired Houston’s first 16 batters and carried a one-run advantage deep into the game, but a ninth-inning swing erased the Tigers’ momentum. After a stretch of wins, Detroit has dropped three straight—each by two runs or fewer—with the tying run of
DETROIT — Troy Melton walked out of his routine between innings and looked like he’d already decided the moment would stay calm.
In the dugout. he uses a breathing exercise to keep himself steady. rarely showing emotion on the mound no matter how the outing is going. So when Taylor Trammell’s drive in the sixth surged toward the right-field line—rising past the point where it should have turned into routine—it wasn’t anger or panic that crossed Melton’s face. It was instinct, the kind that leans with hope.
“I didn’t think it was going foul. I was hoping it was going foul,” Melton said. “It wasn’t a cheap homer. Just really hoping the wind took it somewhere or something happened weird in flight.”
That 422-foot solo homer was the first blemish on Melton’s line all evening. Earlier. he retired Houston’s first 16 batters in order. with only a Yordan Alvarez fly ball to the left-field wall for solid contact. Even after Trammell cleared the fence. the Tigers were still in it—still clinging to a one-run lead that has felt difficult to protect all week.
By the ninth, the margin finally snapped.
Dillon Dingler hit a 432-foot homer to center off Enyel De Los Santos in the ninth, nullifying Trammell’s drive. And the real swing came in the top of the ninth off Kenley Jansen, when Houston manufactured its run. Sluggers Alvarez and Isaac Paredes brought Jeremy Peña home with productive outs after Peña’s leadoff single.
Alvarez, meanwhile, is closing on history. He has a chance to become the first Triple Crown winner since Miguel Cabrera in 2012. Detroit held him hitless, and yet Alvarez still found a way to beat them.
For the Tigers, it’s been a familiar kind of loss—close enough to feel winnable, heavy enough to sting.
They’ve now lost three straight, all by two runs or fewer, after winning four in a row over projected playoff teams. In each defeat, the potential tying run was on base or at the plate. The sequence leaves a player’s mind searching for the smallest break that could’ve changed the ending.
Manager A.J. Hinch doesn’t sound interested in explaining away the feeling. He put it into plain language.
“I don’t think it’s tougher on our psyche,” Hinch said, “because I think our psyche is in battle mode right now no matter what. I don’t think that we can let up in any way, and we haven’t.”
Detroit hasn’t fallen out of the race, either. The Tigers are still five games out of a Wild Card spot thanks to a Blue Jays loss, but they are eight games back in the AL Central. There’s still distance to climb—and the margin for missteps gets thinner when opportunities don’t get seized.
Colt Keith described the mindset that’s keeping them moving.
“All of us are grinding, trying to get wins,” Keith said. “We know the situation we’re in. We’re not dumb. We just want to go out and get wins every night.”
For six innings, Melton gave them exactly that chance.
He came out pitching like he was amped up even though his heart rate stays low by reputation. The opening inning included fastballs of 98 and 99 mph to Paredes to end the frame. Then the zeros kept coming. Melton later said the outing started with a small mechanical change.
“Yesterday, I did something really small mechanically,” Melton said. “I later explained that he worked on being more upright in his delivery after finding himself leaning back. Definitely came out with a little more emphasis on [the] first inning. They’ve been my worst inning, probably. I think just setting a tone from there was key for me. and it was easy to keep that momentum rolling rather than trying to reach back when I want extra.”.
Melton’s season high in strikeouts is five, and he reached it in each of his last three outings. He matched that mark against Houston by fanning five of his first nine batters.
He said he thought about the possibility of a perfect game as early as the third inning, and through five innings he had thrown 75 pitches—enough to make the idea of going the distance fade. Still, he traded zeros with Tatsuya Imai, who held the Tigers to two singles and a walk through six innings.
Melton finished with six strikeouts, one shy of the career high from his MLB debut in Pittsburgh last July. His 15 swinging strikes included five on a fastball that averaged 97.3 mph. and five more on a cutter that averaged well above his season average. The swing-and-miss quality is what the Tigers have been chasing since last fall.
Hinch summed it up with the kind of confidence that only comes from seeing batters flinch on the replay.
“High velo, high cutter velo, movement,” Hinch said. “When they would show the replay, there was some pretty big miss in there. That’s a hard team to get to miss.”
It’s also a hard team to play against when the game turns at exactly the wrong time.
For the Tigers, the night wasn’t about Melton’s effort—it was about what came after it. Trammell’s 422-foot homer trimmed the frame, and Dingler’s 432-foot shot finally lifted Houston over the top. With manufactured damage in the ninth off Kenley Jansen. the Tigers’ near-perfect night became one more narrow loss in a week where every chance to catch up has felt like it mattered just a little more than it should.
Detroit Tigers Troy Melton Houston Astros Taylor Trammell Dingler Kenley Jansen Enyel De Los Santos Yordan Alvarez Isaac Paredes Jeremy Peña A.J. Hinch Colt Keith Wild Card