It was in the serenity of Oregon’s wilderness, knee deep in the cool waters of the Rogue River, where Jacob Melton let everything go.
The disappointment of missing Oregon State’s run in the NCAA baseball tournament. The concern surrounding the first major injury of his career. The worry of wondering whether he would ever return healthy and rediscover his sweet swing. The struggle and monotony of rehabilitation.
Melton enjoyed a breakout season in 2021, emerging as a five-tool wonder and perhaps the Pac-12′s best hitter. But it ended prematurely and painfully, with bite in his right shoulder, numbness in his hand and, ultimately, season-ending surgery. The anxiety and self-doubt arrived soon thereafter.
But tucked away in the southern Oregon woods, with a fishing rod in his hands, a fly at the end of his line and sun beaming overhead, the only thing Melton had to worry about was landing another steelhead or trout.
“It was one of the most challenging things I’ve had to go through personally in my life,” Melton said of his shoulder injury. “It was really hard to deal with and I really struggled with it. But pretty much as soon as I got out of the sling, I started fly fishing. A lot. It was nice to be outside, enjoy the summer and clear my head. It was my escape.”
On Friday, Melton will reach the one-year anniversary of his shoulder surgery, and the fears that consumed him in the aftermath have long dissipated. He’s nearing the end of another remarkable season that has seen him produce eye-popping statistics, surge up Major League Baseball draft boards and earn a spot on the watch list for the Golden Spikes Award, given annually to the top amateur baseball player in the United States.
But the journey back to the top has been anything but easy. Melton not only had to overcome an arduous rehab, but also a mound of self-doubt, a healing process that started amid the tranquility of the Rogue.
• • •
Alex McGarry gazed at the tall, lanky, athletic kid and shook his head.
“I haven’t seen a swing that bad since little league,” he said in the fall of 2019, peering at Melton.
When Melton arrived at Oregon State, he was a gifted athlete with electric speed, defensive instincts and prodigious power. But he was also a project with a funky swing.
“It was a really, really bad swing,” said Wade Meckler, a teammate and close friend.
“One of the worst swings you’ve ever seen,” Melton added, laughing.
It seems unfathomable for a player who leads the Pac-12 in batting average (.372), slugging percentage (.704) and RBIs (66), ranks second in runs scored (55) and stolen bases (19), ranks third in doubles (20) and is tied for fourth in home runs (13). But when he transferred to Oregon State from Linn-Benton Community College, Melton’s swing was long and loopy. He dropped his hands, which caused him to swing up through the zone, and the whole process took so long that Melton had to commit too early to swing if he had any chance to connect with a ball. As a result, he chased bad pitches and struggled to catch up to fastballs.
“He could run like a deer, he had juice in his swing and he had batting practice pop,” said McGarry, a former OSU player now in the Cincinnati Reds organization. “But he was raw. He had all the tools, they just really needed to be refined.”
McGarry and Meckler decided they would facilitate the refining. The two were close friends and perhaps the team’s hardest workers, and they would spend hours each day working on their swings in the Beavers’ indoor batting cages across from Goss Stadium. Before long, the duo became a trio, and Melton learned to love the grind.
“Alex and I were like, ‘Dude, this guy can be an absolute monster,” Meckler said. “It wasn’t even a matter of if, it was a matter of when. The thing we weren’t sure about was his work ethic, and then a month in, the guy’s hitting with us every single day. It’s like, ‘All right, this guy’s going to be an absolute monster. He’s going to figure it out.’”
Meckler and McGarry had spent countless hours researching hitting philosophies and experimenting with their swings. They shared what they had learned with Melton and he absorbed it like a vacuum, refining his mechanics and building confidence. The work initially centered on Melton’s lower half and the art of “coiling into his back hip,” he said, and then advanced to his upper half and the movement of his shoulders.
The process was slow and vexing — Melton had just one hit in 11 at-bats in 2020 before COVID shut down the season — but he kept fighting.
“There were times when he was beyond frustrated,” Meckler said. “He only hit .091 that year, and he wondered: ‘Do I have it? Am I good enough?’ And then when he started to go off last year, it was like all that work that he’d put in was finally paying off. It came in a wave and just never left.”
Assistant coach Darwin Barney offered one final piece of advice early last season, suggesting a helpful timing cue, and Melton and his new swing erupted.
“What those guys did for me meant everything to my success,” Melton says of Meckler and McGarry. “I wasn’t a guy who spent hours in the cages before I met them. But they showed me the ropes, helped me clean up my swing, and were the first ones that got me into the mechanics of the swing. They were just vital to my success here.”
• • •
The yelps and cheers and expletives boomed across the Corvallis apartment with such ferocity, it’s a wonder the whole building didn’t wake up.
It was late in the evening on June 6, 2021, and Garret Forrester had just hit a walk-off home run to give Oregon State a comeback win over Dallas Baptist in the postseason, sending the Beavers to a winner-take-all rematch in the Fort Worth Regional. The dramatic victory came at the end of a roller-coaster day that included a do-or-die doubleheader and a pair of ninth-inning game-winners.
Melton watched the drama unfold from his couch in Corvallis, surrounded by his girlfriend Maizy and their two dogs, Kenai and Juneau. Melton’s shoulder had been surgically repaired 23 days earlier and his arm was wrapped in a sling, which prevented him from jumping up and down and hugging Maizy in celebration. So the 6-foot-3 kid from Medford settled for screaming from the couch.
“I was freaking out,” Melton said, chuckling. “I’m surprised we didn’t get a noise complaint. I definitely let out some choice words I shouldn’t have.”
It was a bittersweet moment. Melton had developed into an exciting and important player for the Beavers, batting .404 with 25 RBIs and six home runs in 99 at-bats, and he was supposed to be on the field in Fort Worth celebrating with his teammates — not yelling from his couch.
But his shoulder wouldn’t allow it.
Melton first injured it in 2020, when he slid awkwardly into second base during a summer league game in Medford. He felt a pop and it was never the same. A few months later, during an intrasquad game in October, Melton hurt it again on a similar play and decided to undergo an MRI. The results revealed a torn labrum.
He decided to delay surgery — and the lengthy rehabilitation — until the end of the season and play through the pain. And, boy, was there pain.
Melton’s shoulder was stiff. His mobility was restricted. A wonky swing here, a weird movement there, and his tolerance was tested.
“I was playing through pain pretty much all year,” Melton said. “I was taped up for almost every game. And then whenever I had a setback, it would hurt to lay down in bed at night and put clothes on.”
Amazingly, Melton didn’t just persevere through the pain, he thrived. He hit three home runs, including a grand slam, in a win over Utah. He went 4 for 6 with a homer and six RBIs in a win over Cal. He hit a towering ninth-inning home run deep into the trees in an extra-inning win at UC Irvine. During one ridiculous seven-game stretch, he went 17 for 25 (.680) with four homers and 10 RBIs.
But two days after that blast into the California trees, Melton felt numbness in his hand and that was the tipping point. He decided to sit out the finale of the UC Irvine series and didn’t play again the rest of the season.
The Beavers were 26-11 before he was sidelined. They sputtered to an 11-13 finish without the breakout slugger, losing four of their final five series. The lineup slumped down the stretch, laboring through a 24-inning scoreless streak. Eventually, the day after Melton celebrated Forrester’s game-winning home run, the season ended with a loss in the regionals.
Melton spent about three more weeks in a sling and retreated to Medford, where he grew up, to rehab and recalibrate. The river immediately called to him.
He’d find a spot at Holy Water by Lost Creek Lake or at Upper Rogue by Shady Cove and spend hours in nature, casting his fly rod and contemplating life. Melton figures he spent five or six days a week on the Rogue chasing fish and it was a successful summer — he says he caught “about 20 steelhead and probably 1,000 trout.” All the while, in the middle of the fresh air and peacefulness, he allowed his mind to wander.
To his breakout season. To his rehab. To his future. Melton couldn’t help but fret about his injury and the challenges ahead.
Could he trust his shoulder again? Would he regain his swing and swagger? Would he reemerge as an MLB prospect?
“It was the biggest setback I’ve had athletically and mentally as a person,” Melton said. “I was just struggling with the self-doubt aspect of it all and not really knowing how I was going to come back and even if I was going to be able to come back 100 percent. Especially after having the breakout last year. I was struggling and I was concerned about my confidence.
“I had never gone through that. I didn’t know where to start and I didn’t know how I would come back.”
It turns out, he would come back even better.
• • •
Melton grinded through rehab, taking an extra two months to make sure his shoulder was ready, and started hitting off a tee in November. He rejoined the team for preseason scrimmages in January, used the next month to prepare his body and mind for the season, and was in the opening day lineup.
It had been about 10 months since he played in a game, but it was impossible to tell. The junior center fielder had two hits in the opener and started on a tear, batting .571 (12 for 21) with 13 RBIs, 10 runs scored and two homers in the first five games. It was the beginning of a season-opening 17-game hit streak.
“We didn’t realize just how much we missed him until he came back,” Meckler said. “When he came back, it was like, ‘Man this would have been nice to have in the regionals last year.’ When he comes to the plate, it’s almost like a guaranteed RBI. The guy can just hit any pitch.”
Nowadays, the kid with the funky swing and the bum shoulder boasts a legendary hitting prowess.
When Melton takes batting practice at Goss, Mitch Canham said, players often stop what they’re doing just to watch. Second baseman Travis Bazzana said Melton regularly sends balls soaring over the scoreboard in right center and well beyond the bleachers in right. And based on “how much juice he has” in his bat, outfielder Justin Boyd said, he wouldn’t be surprised to see Melton crush a ball all the way to Finley Hall.
Keep in mind, Goss and Finley are separated by a field, train tracks, a road and a parking lot.
Hyperbole? Sure. But remember that three-homer game Melton had last season against Utah? His second blast went so far, the Utes’ right fielder didn’t flinch as it soared over the bleachers toward the train tracks. Afterward, the rumor on campus was that the ball landed on one of those Starship robots that delivers takeout.
“You knew it was just crushed as soon as he hit it,” Boyd said. “I remember that one vividly. It was like 450-plus feet. Everyone just stood and watched and just looked at each other in the dugout like, ‘Oh. My. Gosh.’”
A season later, the second-ranked Beavers (40-11) have grown accustomed to such heroics. They’re one series away from winning a Pac-12 regular-season title and have emerged as a national championship contender. Melton has become an All-America candidate.
The rehab? The self-doubt? The bum shoulder?
Those worries washed away down the Rogue long ago, like bait for steelhead.
“I’ve seen so much growth over the last year since my surgery,” Melton said. “It’s something I reflect on from time to time, something that’s in the back of my mind. But I don’t use it as motivation. It was humbling and it’s nice to have something that keeps me grounded. I just try to enjoy every day and be happy I get to go and play every day.”
— Joe Freeman | jfreeman@oregonian.com | 503-294-5183 | @BlazerFreeman | Subscribe to The Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories
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