SEATTLE -- Bryce Miller is back in the spot the Mariners hoped he’d reclaim, and the timing could hardly be better.
A year ago, the right-hander was in the middle of a season that looked like it might never get back on track. He was on his second injured list stint, this one tied to elbow trouble, and still weeks from pitching in a big league game again. At that point, he hadn’t faced a hitter in six weeks and a half, hadn’t finished the sixth inning once all year, and his ERA was sitting much closer to 6 than 5.
That was a long way from the version of Miller Seattle got in 2024, when he put together a 2.94 ERA across 180 1/3 innings. Baseball Savant’s pitching run value told the same story: he went from the 99th percentile to the ninth in 2025.
Now the calendar has turned, and so has Miller. Through 11 outings in 2026, the 27-year-old owns a 2.27 ERA, a 0.88 WHIP and 71 strikeouts. More than the numbers, though, the Mariners are getting the version of him that looks and feels right again.
That matters Friday night, when Miller gets the ball to open a four-game series against the Rangers in a key AL West matchup.
“It’s been a roller coaster, but this year has been a whole lot more fun than last year, for sure,” he said.
Miller said the turnaround really started last fall. Even after he came back from the IL for a second time in August, he still wasn’t right. What he needed was one outing that could change the way he carried the offseason.
He found it in the playoffs, in Game 1 of the ALCS in Toronto, when he threw six innings of one-run ball on short rest. It was just one start, but it changed the tone of everything that came after.
“Throughout the regular season, I felt like if anything, I was hurting the team,” Miller said. “I wasn’t helping at all. Just feeling like I was able to have an impact on last season positively was big for me.”
Spring Training brought another setback, this time an oblique strain that delayed his season debut for the first five weeks. Miller said it was easier to handle than the elbow issue because he could still do almost everything in his routine without pain. But the one thing that mattered most still wasn’t there.
“The only time I would feel it was whenever I got on the mound and tried to step on it and throw hard,” he said. “... Every time, I would be like, ‘Alright, hopefully today’s the day,’ and get up on the mound, and for three or four weeks, the first couple throws I’d feel it and we’d have to back off.”
He had to wait until his motion stopped hurting. Seven weeks into the recovery, that finally happened.
“It just took a month and a half to turn the page, and once it did, it hasn’t given me an issue,” he said.
When Miller finally returned on May 13, he didn’t just resume his old form. He’s been even sharper. His chase rate has jumped from 27.1% in 2024 to 36.2% in 2026, and a big reason is the splitter, which has produced a 34.6% whiff rate and a 27.3% putaway rate.
The splitter isn’t the whole story. Six of his seven pitches have shown major gains in chase rate compared with last season - which now looks more and more like an injury-driven outlier - and even compared with his breakout two years ago. The lone exception is the sinker, and he’s throwing that pitch less than ever.
“Really, I think the big step for me this year is that when I get to 0-2 or 1-2 quick, I’m able to finish hitters,” he said. “Being able to get to the swing-and-miss locations and getting the strikeouts whenever I can. In the past, I would keep hammering heaters up, and they would foul them off and I’d hope they missed one.”
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