Mariners Lineup: Bryce Miller gets start in pivotal finale vs Astros

The biggest game of the Seattle Mariners’ 2023 season will soon be upon us, and a lot of the M’s playoff hopes and aspirations falls onto a rookie.

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Bryce Miller, the young right-hander who has been a fixture in Seattle’s rotation since debuting in early-May, gets the ball for the Mariners in the biggest start of his young career. Miller enters the matchup with a 4.17 ERA, 1.123 WHIP and 115 strikeouts to 25 walks in 127 1/3 innings across 24 starts.

Lineups have officially dropped for both clubs, which you can check out below along with some notes on the matchup.

First pitch is set for 6:40 p.m. Pacific. As always, you can listen to all the action on Seattle Sports (710 AM) and the Seattle Sports App. Coverage begins with the pregame show at 5:30 p.m. after Wyman and Bob.

Seattle Mariners Lineup

J.P. Crawford, SS
Julio Rodríguez, CF
Eugenio Suárez, 3B
Teoscar Hernández, RF
Dylan Moore, LF
Ty France, 1B
Cal Raleigh, C
Sam Haggerty, DH
Jose Caballero, 2B

Bryce Miller, SP

Houston Astros Lineup

José Altuve, 2B
Alex Bregman, 3B
Yordan Álvarez, DH
Kyle Tucker, RF
José Abreu, 1B
Michael Brantley, LF
Mauricio Dubón, CF
Jeremy Peña, SS
Martín Maldonado, C

Framber Valdez, SP

Matchup Notes

• Miller has pitched very well for the Mariners both at home and against the Astros this year.

In 13 starts at T-Mobile Park, Miller has yielded just a 3.34 ERA and 1.043 WHIP with 62 strikeouts to 15 walks in 70 innings.

He’s also been nearly perfect against Houston, posting a 0.00 ERA, 0.487 WHIP while allowing just four hits and two walks to seven strikeouts in 12 1/3 innings pitched. One of those starts was in Seattle while the other was in Houston.

• On the other side, Framber Valdez, an All-Star lefty, gets the ball for Houston.

Valdez has put up good numbers for the Astros this year with a 3.39 ERA and 1.098 WHIP. But he has had his struggles in the second half, posting a 4.55 ERA since the All-Star Break.

Valdez also gives up a lot of hard contact, as evidenced by his lowly second percentile average exit velocity allowed, per Statcast.

A key for the Mariners will be getting the young southpaw up in the zone, as he’s one of the game’s top groundball pitchers with his sinker and slider. He ranks in the 90th percentile in groundball rate this year.

• To say it’s a must-win game for the Mariners would be quite the understatement.

If the Mariners win, then winning two of their final four games would force the Astros to need a sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks, a curent playoff team, in order to make it to the postseason over Seattle.

If the M’s lose, they would need the Astros to lose at least one game against Arizona, and that would require a Seattle sweep of the Rangers.

A win also would give the Mariners a 10-3 season record against Houston, a team that has had Seattle’s number in recent years. The M’s enter Wednesday having outscored the Astros 60-34 in 12 games, or 5-2.83 per game.

When Wednesday’s series finale is done, we’ll have all the information on updated standings and the Mariners’ postseason path, regardless of if they win or lose.

• Given the stakes, hopefully nothing comes of this, but Astros manager Dusty Baker voiced displeasure after Tuesday’s game with his batters getting his by pitches. Mariners relievers hit two Astros batters late in the game.

With that being something to keep an eye on ahead of this series finale, below is a thorough breakdown on the discrepancy between Mariners hit batters, Astros hit batters and the amount of hitters the two teams’ pitching staffs have hit, too.

Dusty Baker ‘tired’ of Astros getting hit? His pitchers hit Seattle Mariners more

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