DETROIT -- It is impossible to remember the heartache of the 2025 ALCS without also reliving the euphoria of the ALDS that preceded it.
Five games -- two of them extra-inning affairs -- spread across one glorious fall week that culminated in a quake-making winner-take-all standoff. And then, after nearly five hours and 15 innings, Seattle’s first trip to the ALCS in 24 years.
While Sunday's finale at Comerica Park had similar late-game drama, history didn’t otherwise matter much when the Mariners and Tigers wrapped their first series since Jorge Polanco’s walk-off single sent Detroit packing last October. Seattle was focused solely on reigniting its recent surge, and who better than Luis Castillo -- the guy who earned that crucial Game 5 win with 1 1/3 scoreless frames of relief -- to get things moving?
Castillo has been notoriously tough on the Tigers throughout his career, and he entered Sunday with a 6.13 strikeout-to-walk ratio against Detroit. After the Mariners struggled to get the bats going in the opener and dominated Detroit on both sides of the ball on Saturday, the right-hander took the mound intent on adding to the good vibes.
Of course, there was motivation behind Castillo’s outing during Seattle’s 5-4 loss beyond just helping his team. The Mariners' six-man rotation won’t be in effect forever, and every starter is working to make the club's ultimate decision as difficult as possible.
Castillo opened with two perfect innings, compiling three strikeouts and drawing six swing-and-misses. The velocity on each of his four pitches was up nearly a full tick on his season average, capped by the 97.3 mph four-seamer he uncorked on leadoff batter Kerry Carpenter to end a 10-pitch at-bat with a popout to start the game.
Castillo faced just one over the minimum through three innings, allowing a two-out single in the third. The Tigers tested his mettle and his pitch count with extended at-bats, but Castillo was bullish. When he departed after 5 2/3 innings and 100 pitches (70 strikes), he did so with a wide smile and a standing ovation from the handful of Mariners fans behind the visitors' dugout ... but only after giving his skipper a good-natured hard time about getting the hook.
"I asked [Dan Wilson] if he was seriously planning to take me out," Castillo said in Spanish. "And then, I asked [the infield] what they thought about me being pulled. They told me, 'Relax, relax. You did a good job.'"
Castillo allowed just one run, a leadoff homer in the fourth. The outing lowered his ERA from 5.53 to 5.16.
Seattle's offense did enough behind its starter to take a 4-1 lead into the seventh-inning stretch, using a run-scoring singles from Cole Young and Randy Arozarena, an RBI double from Josh Naylor and a bases-loaded HBP from rookie Colt Emerson.
"I thought [Castillo] had things well under control. He really kept [the Tigers] pretty quiet for the time he was out there and allowed our offense to get going a little bit," Wilson said.
The Mariners ultimately dropped the game and the series on Kevin McGonigle's two-run walk-off single against Andrés Muñoz, but Seattle (34-32) still leads the AL West and has nine wins in its past 12 games.
Just a few weeks ago, Castillo's spot in Seattle's rotation seemed far less secure. When Bryce Miller returned from the injured list in May, the Mariners opted for an unconventional solution. Rather than remove a starter, Seattle paired Miller and Castillo in a three-turn piggyback arrangement, alternating which pitcher started and which followed in relief.
While Miller was lights-out in the postseason (2.51 ERA in 14 1/3 innings) and built on that momentum during a strong Spring Training, Castillo -- who signed a five-year extension worth $108 million in September 2022 – opened the season with a 6.34 ERA over his first nine starts.
Enter the piggyback, a decision that involved Miller and Castillo alternating starts for three turns, with one starting and the other coming in relief after four or five innings. The strategy wasn’t all that popular with Miller and Castillo, but it also seemed to flip a switch for Castillo, as he compiled a 2.38 ERA and a .132 batting average against during the stretch.
“I think what we saw in his piggyback outings was his ability to attack," Wilson said. “... I think it's been consistent for him all year, but it's just [that] the results haven't been great.”
So far, the arrangement seems to have provided just the reset Castillo needed.
“I think it could be,” Wilson said.