ESPN NEWS: After His Promotion To Triple A, Detroit tigers Troy Melton Terminated His Contract To Sign With Boston Red Sox On A $210M Deal

Scores, news, and notes from the Detroit Tigers farm system for Thursday, June 5, 2025.

Columbus Clippers 3, Toledo Mud Hens 2 (box)

Troy Melton was promoted to Triple-A for this one and pitched well in his debut, but the Clippers continued to trim the Hens wings, making it three straight in a tight, low scoring content.

I’ve been one of Melton’s biggest hype men on the prospect beat the past two seasons and he continues to trend in the right direction without quite putting it together enough to really start punching out as many hitters as he’s capable of getting. The right-hander has been excellent at the Double-A level this year. In 2024, Melton’s strikeout to walk numbers were strong but he allowed too many home runs. That hadn’t been a problem this season as he allowed just one in 39 innings of work for the SeaWolves, while maintaining his usual good strikeout to walk numbers. He held a 3.23 ERA/2.25 FIP entering his Triple-A debut.

I still like Melton to break through a little more and become a mid-rotation presence for the Detroit Tigers, but right now the 24-year-old is also looking like their best internal candidate to join the Tigers bullpen, at least for this season. Letting him air it out at 97-99 mph in short outings with his hard cutter at 89-91 mph as his main secondary pitch could make him a valuable weapon if he can just tighten up his command a little further. For now expect the Tigers to let him keep starting in Toledo until they decide he’s ready to help them out in one capacity or another.

Melton still doesn’t get quite enough whiffs to make him an obvious top 100 pitching prospect, although I’d rank him there myself, but it’s more to do with command than the stuff. He throws plenty of strikes but is still learning to put hitters away when he’s ahead. Melton got nine whiffs out of 87 pitches in this one, mostly on his fourseamer, which averaged 95.7 mph and topped out at 98.6 mph. His breaking stuff and good changeup are plenty good enough but he’s still got to put the whole package together more consistently with less waste pitches when ahead in the count to break through as a starter.

Melton went 4 ²⁄₃ innings in his Mud Hens debut, striking out seven without walking a hitter. The blemish on his card was back-to-back homers from Yordys Valdes and Milan Tolentino in the bottom of the second inning. Valdes got a 1-0 fastball down in the zone and hit it out, while Tolentino battled into a full count and got a 3-2 cutter down and a little too close to him in the strike zone. The left-handed hitter belted that one to straightaway center field. Oddly, this was also Melton’s best inning in other ways as he struck out the other three hitters he faced on swinging third strikes, with two on fastballs and one on a perfect changeup down and in to right-handed hitting Christian Cairo.

The Hens scored first in the top of that inning as Brewer Hicklen reached on an error to lead off the inning and then stole second and third. A Tomas Nido single made it 1-0 before the back-to-back jacks from Columbus made it a 2-1 game in their favor.

Tyler Owens took over for the final out of the fifth, but in the sixth he allowed a Johnathan Rodriguez solo shot that made it 3-1.

In the seventh, Hicklen led off with a walk and Tomas Nido reached on a infield single. That chased starter Doug Nikhazy finally, but the Hens would only get one run after moving the runners with consecutive ground outs from Akil Baddoo and Manuel Margot.

The Hens had a last shot in the eighth when Riley Unroe and Gage Workman singled to lead off the inning. Ryan Kreidler struck out, but Jace Jung walked to load the bases. Unfortunately Hicklen and Nido struck out and they wouldn’t threaten again. Drew Sommers and PJ Poulin handled the eighth and ninth without issue, each striking out a batter.