COMSTOCK PARK, Mich. -- Tigers prospect Parker Meadows loves the chance to surprise people with the foot speed he can produce from his 6-foot-5 frame. But even he wasn’t thinking he’d have the chance to show it off as his drive hit the center-field fence two weeks ago.

“I was thinking triple,” he admitted on Thursday.

Class A West Michigan manager and third-base coach Lance Parrish wasn’t thinking inside-the-park home run, either. He thought the ball was gone off the bat, then he saw the ball bounce off the wall towards the right fielder backing up the play. Then he saw Meadows’ stride swallowing swaths of basepaths with each step.

“If you watch the way that he runs, he can absolutely fly once he gets those big legs going,” Parrish said. “It’s just the way the ball caromed off the wall and how he was moving around the bases. I knew at a certain point that he had a legitimate chance.”

As the right fielder collected the ball, Meadows, ranked as Detroit's No. 9 prospect by MLB Pipeline, was already nearing third, where Parrish waved him around. As Meadows looked and sped up again to try for home, the hyper-athletic outfield prospect had a rare bit of awkwardness, nearly falling over on his way down the line as he prepared for a play at the plate.

“He actually slid headfirst into home,” Parrish said, “and I think he could’ve just crossed the plate standing up.”

It was Meadows’ first home run as a full-season pro player, and it wasn’t close. He was still brimming with excitement as he talked with his older brother on the phone, then he heard Austin had homered twice that night for the Rays at Rogers Centre.

“I told him good job, he told me good job,” Parker said. “I told him I was faster than him. We talk a lot.”

While Austin Meadows has arrived as one of baseball’s potential young stars, off to a hot start before landing on the injured list with a right thumb sprain, Parker Meadows’ journey to the Majors is just beginning after the Tigers selected him with the 44th overall pick in last year’s MLB Draft. He’s a teenager in the Midwest League, two years younger than the average age of players there this season, and at times the difference is evident. He added a traditional home run to his inside-the-parker (pun intended), but he was batting as low as .214 earlier this week.

“Even though he got off to a slow start, I think he just started pressing, which is not uncommon for a lot of guys,” Parrish said. “He wanted to come up here and make a good impression. I don’t know if he’s ever played in this kind of weather before. It can be difficult. It takes getting used to. I think more than anything he just was trying to do too much.”

Parker Meadows' swing wasn’t completely out of whack, Parrish said, but he needed some help. Meadows found it with the help of hitting coach John Vander Wal.

“It was all about timing for me,” Meadows said. “First couple weeks, I was struggling with my timing. I got with our hitting coach, Vandy, and he helped me a lot.”

A pair of multi-hit games this week, separated by a sore hamstring that kept Meadows out of the lineup a couple of days, put him back in line. The 19-year-old entered Saturday’s game against Lake County batting .242 (16-for-66) with two doubles, two homers, seven RBIs and five runs scored, along with a 23-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio and a .659 OPS.

He’ll have more struggles as the season goes on and the daily grind of a full Minor League campaign begins to wear, but those individual snippets -- the inside-the-park home run two weeks ago, a highlight catch here and there -- are previews of what he can do. He has a lot to learn about the game, but he has athleticism that can’t be taught, which is how he can be a 6-foot-5 outfielder in an organization that plays its Major League home games at spacious Comerica Park.

“He’s going to be a very good outfielder at some point,” Parrish said. “He already has the speed to make up for mistakes, but when he starts to learn how to get better reads and get better jumps, he’s going to be something.”

For Parrish, the more encouraging development than the home run came when he finally got Meadows to slow down for a minute and head gracefully into third earlier this week.

“He got on third base after he had just gotten a hit and worked his way over there,” Parrish said, “and he said, ‘You know, I think I’m finally starting to relax.’ For me, obviously, that equates to he’s starting to get comfortable, he’s starting to feel it.”