HOUSTON — Hunter Brown exemplifies his hometown, a place that prides itself on pluck and has a caffeinated football coach who can’t stop talking about grit. Dan Campbell calls it the Detroit Lions’ “core foundation,” but talk to those who’ve called this city home and you find out it’s far from cliche.
“That grit has been around the city of Detroit for a long time and Hunter Brown embodies that,” Ryan Kelley said. “Some of that grit and where he grew up — in the city area of Detroit — will help him. He has a competitive background and a fire and he’ll be able to channel that.”
Kelley is a metro Detroit native who has coached the local college baseball team for the past 16 seasons. Wayne State University’s campus is less than 2 miles from Comerica Park, providing an inextricable link between both ballclubs — one a Division II darling, the other operating as a team of October destiny.
Kelley’s practice Tuesday afternoon coincided with the Detroit Tigers’ first playoff game in 10 years, so he streamed Dan Dickerson’s radio call over Harwell Field’s public address system for his players to enjoy. The field cleared before a chaos-filled ninth inning, one Kelley watched from the edge of his office chair.
The Tigers’ 3-1 victory over the Houston Astros put them 27 outs away from prolonging an improbable invasion of the American League playoffs. The man who must stop it is one of the best players Kelley’s program has ever produced, a boy born and bred in Detroit and, for one afternoon, its biggest demon.
“It is very awkward. Me, personally, I’ve grown up a Detroit Tigers fan. I will always be a Detroit Tigers fan and a Detroit sports fan,” Kelley said. “I’m definitely hoping that the Tigers do well, but there is some emotion there and a lot of connectivity there with Hunter. I want to see him be awesome, I really do. It is unique. I’d say I’m thankful that we’re even in the opportunity to at least discuss this and even talk about it.”
Tuesday evening did not supply an environment for sentimentality. Tarik Skubal toyed with the Astros across six superb innings before Detroit’s anonymous assortment of relievers conducted “pitching chaos” to collect the final nine outs. After his team left the bases loaded in the ninth inning, Brown answered eight questions atop a dais before departing in preparation for the biggest start of his life.
“I try and take a playoff mindset throughout the whole year and know that each game in the big leagues is really important,” Brown said. “So I’m going to prepare, quite frankly, the same way that I have this whole season.”
Houston’s entire uneven season rests on Brown’s right arm. None of this team’s other 27 players better personify the path it has traveled. Brown reached rock bottom at the beginning of May, when everyone around him had already arrived. Brown was not the biggest problem of the Astros’ 12-24 start, but coaches still acknowledge a demotion to Triple-A loomed for a languishing young pitcher with a problem limiting slug.
Manager Joe Espada and pitching coach Josh Miller suggested a brief detour to the bullpen to “maybe jump-start the season.” Brown obliged and bullied this Tigers lineup across five innings of one-run ball in long relief. He struck out seven and surrendered five hits May 11 at Comerica Park, where a hometown crowd saw a sliver of the past.
Six days beforehand, Brown began throwing a sinker. Alex Bregman had already suggested it to keep right-handed hitters from leaning over home plate, but watching Seattle starters Bryce Miller and George Kirby use the pitch further prompted Brown to incorporate it. He had not deployed the sinker since his days at Wayne State, and even then it did not headline his arsenal.
Now, it is the pitch around which his season must be viewed. Since Brown started throwing the sinker May 5, only Chris Sale and Paul Skenes have a lower ERA than his 2.51 mark. He’s finished at least six innings in 19 of his 23 starts in that stretch.
Given Detroit’s better splits against right-handed pitching, some wondered whether Houston would start left-hander Yusei Kikuchi over Brown in Game 2. That Espada avoided naming Brown the starter until after Game 1 only furthered the thought.
“Hunter was starting Game 2 a long time ago. I just never told you that,” Espada said. “He’s one of the best starters in the game. He’s been one of the best pitchers in the second half. So that was a no-brainer for me.”
Tigers manager A.J. Hinch could stack left-handed hitters Kerry Carpenter, Colt Keith and Zach McKinstry against Brown on Wednesday, but Brown boasts reverse splits — perhaps another reason Espada always had him in mind for Game 2.
Few pitchers in the sport are throwing with more confidence than Brown, who has always craved moments in massive spots. During his junior season at Wayne State, coaches considered whether to shut him down and preserve his draft stock.
“He took the ball. He’s pitching for an NCAA Division II program when he’s on the cusp of getting drafted,” Kelley said. “I go back to those moments and he still took the ball, whereas maybe some other prospects would’ve thought differently. He wanted to pitch. He wanted to compete. And he wanted to help his team win.”
Kelley keeps in contact with Brown after each of his starts, sometimes just via a quick text message or a voicemail. Some of Brown’s Wayne State teammates have met up with him during various trips this season, including one of his roommates in Toronto. Brown has maintained an offseason home in downtown Detroit, where he’ll take walks with his dog, Whiskey — sometimes around Comerica Park.
Brown is one of nine draft picks in Wayne State’s 83-year baseball history. Only Brown and reliever Anthony Bass have reached the major leagues. Brown’s ascension into acehood puts him on the precipice of being the best player the school has ever produced, an outcome he always considered possible, but never said aloud.
Doubt has always fueled Brown, be it from the Division I school that offered him its bullpen catcher job or countless talent evaluators who questioned whether he could stick as a major-league starter.
The Detroit boy has proved all of them wrong and is at the place he always presumed he’d be — on baseball’s biggest stage bearing witness to another run by his favorite team.
“Looking back, if I think about it, when I was 10 or 11 years old, I thought about pitching for them,” Brown said. “A little bit different now.”
(Photo: Logan Riely / Getty Images)
