Tigers reminded of embarrassing draft miss as Hunter Brown dominates in Astros return

The Astros' beleaguered rotation got back a key piece on Tuesday, when Hunter Brown came off of the 60-day IL to pitch against his hometown Tigers.

It wasn't the first time Brown — who was born in Detroit, grew up in St. Clair Shores, and went to Wayne State University — has faced the team he grew up rooting for. Outside of a few regular season starts, he most notably got the ball against them in the 2024 Wild Card, a game Detroit went on to win to advance to the ALDS.

He went onto the 15-day IL with a shoulder strain in early April after just two starts, and was eventually transferred to the 60-day in May. He was an All-Star and Cy Young finalist last year and has always pitched well against the Tigers, but maybe he'd still have to find his legs after being away from major league action for so long. We could only hope.

Brown ended up pitching 5 2/3 one-run innings with seven strikeouts. He probably could've gotten out of the inning if he was presumably on a pitch count and already just past 90 pitches.

So the Astros get to breathe a sigh of relief that he looks just like his regular self now that he's back, and the Tigers get to wonder from the sidelines how they let a Michigan kid — especially one this good — get away.

Tigers should regret missing the opportunity to draft Michigan's own Hunter Brown in 2019

The Astros took Brown in the fifth round of the 2019 draft, which makes sense. He had a solid 2019 season at Wayne State, but he'd struggled in his previous two years (and Wayne State is a Division II school).

The Tigers took Riley Greene first that year, which was anything but a regrettable decision, but the names that came after him will have fans wanting to bang their heads into a wall. Nick Quintana, Andrew Lipcius, Ryan Kreidler, Bryant Packard. Only two of them made it the major leagues, Lipcius is now in the Mexican League, and Kreidler is batting .190 in June for the Twins.

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Hindsight is 20/20, sure, and the Astros probably deserve some amount of credit for developing Brown into the pitcher he's become. But, come on. The Tigers sign plenty of local guys to minor league deals, so it isn't as though they're not keeping an eye on the local scene (though, to be fair, 2019 was still in the Al Avila era).

Brown has actually tended to see the Tigers quite a bit in his five major league seasons for a non-division matchup, and the schedule may continue to dictate that continues. And the fact that he isn't a Tiger will be something we continue harping on every time.

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