The Detroit Tigers open a road series at the Houston Astros on Monday night with Drew Anderson named to open after Troy Melton was scratched from the scheduled start.
The game — Game 73 of the season — is set for 8:10 p.m. ET at Daikin Park in Houston, and Kai-Wei Teng is scheduled to start for the Astros.
Detroit arrives seeking to snap a two-game losing streak; Houston comes in off a series win over the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman, despite dropping the finale on Sunday.
Melton, 25, had been penciled in to start the opener. He has thrown 25.2 innings this year and is 3-1 when he takes the ball. His only previous appearance against Houston was a one-inning outing on Aug. 18 last season in a 10-0 Tigers victory.
Kai-Wei Teng, who moved permanently from the bullpen into the rotation in mid-May, has made seven starts since the shift. His last three outings have been rocky: 14 innings with a 7.71 ERA and a 6.39 FIP while yielding 17 hits, three home runs and nine walks and hitting two batters.
The scratch forced the Tigers to alter their planned mound usage for the series opener, with Anderson taking the role of opener. How long Melton will be unavailable and what prompted the late change were not announced before first pitch.
The immediate calendar is simple: Detroit and Houston play Monday at 8:10 p.m. ET at Daikin Park; the Tigers will try to stabilize their second leg of the road trip and halt the skid. The clearest outstanding question is whether Melton’s absence is short-term — a single scratch that reshuffles early-inning work — or something that will force the Tigers into a longer-term adjustment to their pitching plans.
