Mariners address communication gap over piggyback plan with Castillo, Miller

WEST SACRAMENTO -- Communication, or a lack thereof, appeared to be the clearest source of frustration for Bryce Miller and Luis Castillo on Monday night.

And a handful of the Mariners’ primary decision makers spent a chunk of Tuesday trying to alleviate those issues between the two-man tandem to their piggyback turn through the rotation -- while also being explicit about their plans for its next pass and beyond.

That comes up on Sunday against the D-backs, and Seattle will indeed flip-flop the two again, as Miller will start that matinee at T-Mobile Park and Castillo will follow from the bullpen.

Aside from a few very public moments of contention from Castillo and Miller, the piggyback strategy has actually worked -- both as the club has intended and to the success of each arm involved.

Miller and Castillo have a combined 2.12 ERA with 21 strikeouts and five walks while holding hitters to a .485 OPS and recording a 0.82 WHIP in the two games that they’ve pitched in tandem. They’ve also accounted for 17 of the 18 innings in those contests.

As such, and for many more reasons, it’s a situation that will remain in place for the time being.

And that outlook was thoroughly relayed during meetings with Castillo and Miller on Tuesday, which included manager Dan Wilson and pitching coach Pete Woodworth. Later on, Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto initiated a one-on-one with Miller and Castillo each, to extend the line of contact even further.

Both players were said to have absorbed those correspondences positively.

“While still not an ideal situation, I am confident that we were able to more clearly communicate the current situation and plan moving forward,” Dipoto said.

This leads to the obvious follow-up: Why wasn’t the communication aspect of this piggyback strategy more deliberate earlier?

Some of it ties back to the situation being in beta, even if the front office had mapped out its likelihood as far back as six weeks ago. After all, when Miller was activated from the IL and the Mariners had six healthy starters for the first time, they deployed a six-man rotation that first time through.

It’s possible that they go to a six-man rotation again once the schedule tightens and they have fewer off-days. Because, again, they do not intend to move either Miller or Castillo to the bullpen full-time, nor do they intend to send anyone to the Minors.

Some of it, bluntly, ties back to wanting to keep everyone involved content -- though those efforts may have had a backfiring effect.

Miller said that he had just one to two days' notice of which piggyback role he’d fulfill, which he revealed in an on-camera postgame interview after finishing Monday’s game.

Castillo, meanwhile, was seen throwing his glove into the dugout bench after learning that he was being pulled after four innings in the 9-2 win -- even though he knew that his leash would be shorter than usual.

“Communicating it, and everybody understanding, is paramount, for sure,” Wilson said Tuesday. “... Their willingness to do it, and for the team in a way they're going out there, is tremendous.”

The direct conversations on Tuesday were with Miller and Castillo, but the correspondence will include the entire six-man unit on Friday, once the club returns to Seattle and gets through Thursday’s off-day.

From there, the Mariners will continue to map out how to best maximize their six-man group -- but again, the deployment will look fairly similar for the foreseeable future.

That’s because...

• Miller has looked dynamite in his three outings and they want to maximize his potential. He’d be the clearest option to move to the bullpen, given his workload challenges and IL stints the past 12 months, yet the Mariners also don’t want to compromise his confidence, which is high right now.

• Although Castillo has been their most inconsistent starter, moving him to the bullpen even semi-permanently could compromise an opportunity to re-stretch him back out should another injury arise. Because once in the bullpen, daily availability is vital, and re-transitioning him to a starter could take weeks.

• Emerson Hancock, who was the injury fill-in for Miller out of Spring Training, has been arguably their most consistent starter. And he began Tuesday’s outing by going 12 up, 12 down.

• They’d prefer not to subtract starts from George Kirby, Bryan Woo or Logan Gilbert, which would happen with a regular six-man rotation.

A case could be made that having six healthy starters is the best problem the sport has to offer, even if the optics haven’t had immediate reflection. But the Mariners acknowledged that a fix to some of this is better communication, which they believe they took on Tuesday.