DETROIT — Pretty good night for the local kid.
Astros rookie Hunter Brown, the pride of St. Clair Shores Lakeview High School and the Wayne State University baseball program, took over Comerica Park for a night.
Pitching in front a large and enthusiastic rooting section comprised of family, friends and former teammates and coaches, the right-hander subdued the Tigers over six innings in the Astros’ 6-3 win Tuesday night.
It was his second big-league start and he’s won them both. He wasn’t quite as dominant as he was against the Rangers in his debut (six innings, no runs), but he was impressive.
He threw 54 four-seam fastballs at an average velocity of 96.7 mph. He struck out Javier Báez with a 94-mph slider. And if that wasn’t enough, he mixed in 17 knuckle curves, getting punch-outs with two of them.
The Tigers, though, brought a good approach into the game, especially early. They didn’t chase pitches and made Brown come into the strike zone. And, in favorable counts, they hit a lot of balls on the barrel. The 15 balls they put in play had an average exit velocity of 96 mph.
But the only damage came off the two extra-base hits he allowed. Eric Haase doubled home Spencer Torkelson in the second inning. And Akil Baddoo drilled a two-strike breaking ball to the wall in center for a triple in the third inning. He scored on a single by Riley Greene.
Greene had a hit and a walk, extending his on-base streak to 19 games.
Brown set down the last seven hitters he faced through six innings and left with a 4-2 lead.
It was a befuddling night for Tigers starter Drew Hutchison. He threw a lot of strikes and got ahead of most of the hitters he faced. But that last step in the process eluded him — finishing the hitters off.
The Astros built a 4-0 lead in the first three innings with four two-out hits. In three of the four, Hutchison had two strikes on the hitter.
Yordan Alvarez blasted his 33rd home run of the season, hitting a 1-2 changeup with two outs and nobody on in the first inning.
Hutchison got ahead of Alvarez 1-2 again with two outs in the third inning. This time he hung a slider and Alvarez mashed it for a double. He scored when Alex Bregman singled up the middle on a 1-2 pitch.
Next hitter, Kyle Tucker, didn’t wait for the second strike. He slammed an 0-1 slider from Hutchison into the seats in right field.
Hutchison threw 49 pitches in those first three innings and got just two swings and misses on 24 swings. The damage-to-contact rate was significant.
Still, as he typically does, Hutchison kept fighting and got into the sixth inning, holding the deficit to two runs.
He got some help from reliever Alex Lange in the sixth. After an error by shortstop Báez (on a ground ball hit with an exit velocity of 108 mph by Aledmys Diaz), he gave up one last two-strike hit — a double to Mauricio Dubon.
With runners on second and third, Hutchison gave way to Lange, who struck out Martin Maldonado and, after he hit Jose Altuve to load the bases, Jeremy Pena.
It was a big moment in the game was soon muted by another loud, two-out knock by the Astros — a two-run home run by Yuli Gurriel off Tigers reliever Andrew Chafin.
The home run — hit off a four-seam fastball, a pitch Chafin rarely throws — was a gut-punch. It came after a spectacular diving catch in right-center field by Greene. With a runner at first, Greene tracked a slicing liner by Bregman 109 feet into the gap and caught it with a full layout dive.
It looked like Chafin was going to wriggle out of the inning until Gurriel locked onto that ill-fated four-seamer.
Kody Clemens, getting a rare start, pounded his fourth home run of the season in the seventh inning, an opposite-field bullet over the visitor’s bullpen in left-center field.
