The Seattle Mariners have spent two straight games wrestling with their pitching plan, and the conversation around manager Dan Wilson’s decisions has only gotten louder.
Saturday set the tone. Rookie starter Kade Anderson was left in long enough to give up home runs on his final two pitches in a 5-4 win.
Sunday was uglier. Bryce Miller stayed in after walking the bases loaded in the third, then served up a grand slam.
He was still out there in the fifth, walked the bases loaded again, and came out with a career-high seven walks as the game spiraled into a 19-2 loss.
The reaction online was immediate and fierce, especially after Miller was allowed to continue following the grand slam and then again after loading the bases in the fifth. But the bigger picture matters here, because this wasn’t just a case of one questionable move in a vacuum.
Saturday looked like Wilson trying to squeeze a few more outs out of Anderson before handing the game to a bullpen that had already been taxed. There’s also clearly a level of trust there in the starters that doesn’t extend to every reliever.
Sunday felt different. That looked more like a manager boxed in by a roster that didn’t give him many clean choices.
The Mariners were already in an awkward spot because of Bryan Woo’s injury, with the club not knowing the full extent of the issue. That uncertainty helped lead to Kade Anderson’s call-up for Saturday’s start. It also meant Seattle went into the weekend with six starters and seven relievers instead of the usual five and eight, which immediately tightened the margin for error.
And even that seven-reliever setup was a little misleading.
If Miller had been pulled right after the first walk in the fifth, Seattle still would have needed five innings from the bullpen. But not all of those arms were truly available.
Carlos Vargas, who can work multiple innings, had just returned from the injured list on Friday after missing the entire season. He threw 31 pitches in his season debut on Saturday, so he was clearly out. That left the Mariners with six relievers in theory, but not really.
Michael Rucker was another option who could have covered multiple innings, but he had already thrown 40 pitches on Thursday while covering for George Kirby, then added 14 more on Saturday. He did appear in Sunday’s game eventually, but the team would have wanted to avoid leaning on him for the amount of work that would have been required.
That left Seattle with five relievers to cover five innings, and Seranthony Dominguez was also a guy the team probably wanted to stay away from after pitching in three of the previous four games. So in practical terms, it was more like four usable arms for five innings.
That is how Jose Ferrer and Eduard Bazardo got dragged into the work, with Ferrer throwing more than an inning and needing 24 pitches just to help the club get through the afternoon.
Sure, Wilson can be criticized for leaving Miller in too long. There’s also a fair gripe that leverage arms were used in spots that didn’t feel ideal.
But once the full bullpen picture is laid out, the alternatives look pretty thin. At that point, hoping Miller could survive the inning may have been as good as anything else.
Now the Mariners head into Monday’s showdown with the Phillies still carrying the consequences.
Rucker is clearly in danger of being down, if he even makes it through pregame roster moves, since he’s out of options and can only be designated for assignment. Vargas is still probably unavailable.
Ferrer and Bazardo both pitched, though they might be usable. Andres Munoz, Gabe Speier and Dominguez are likely fine, but that still leaves Wilson short on answers.
Seattle needs Logan Gilbert to give them real length.
As for the longer view, the Mariners have a few possible paths. They can keep using the six-man rotation and hope their starters cover enough innings to mask the bullpen issues.
Sept. 1 brings roster expansion, which would let Seattle add another bullpen arm. The question is whether they can survive until then.
Cooper Criswell could help with length once he returns, and he only began his rehab assignment at Triple-A on Saturday.
There are also bigger roster questions looming. Would the Mariners put Bryan Woo on the injured list for 10 days in order to open a spot for another bullpen arm?
Could they do the same with Miller, who has been ineffective in his last nine starts dating back to early July? Miller said on Sunday that he has been dealing with a small lat issue since late July.
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