Castillo to start in Mariners’ next piggyback vs A’s

The Seattle Mariners will employ their piggyback strategy again for Monday night’s series opener against the Athletics in Sacramento, according to Mariners insider Shannon Drayer.

This time, Luis Castillo will get the start and Bryce Miller will come out of the bullpen.

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It’ll be the opposite of last Tuesday night’s piggyback debut, when Miller started against the Chicago White Sox and Castillo later pitched out of the bullpen.

The Mariners are experimenting with the piggyback approach as a way to use all six starting pitchers without going to a six-man starting rotation.

When the season began, the assumption was that Emerson Hancock would once again find himself as the odd man out in Seattle’s rotation after Miller returned from his season-opening stint on the injured list for a strained oblique. But Hancock has excelled this season, creating a situation where the Mariners now have six healthy starters following Miller’s return on May 13.

Seattle initially went through one turn with a six-man rotation, but then pivoted to the piggyback strategy last week.

In the first Miller-Castillo piggyback last Tuesday night, Miller opened with 5 2/3 scoreless innings against the White Sox. He struck out seven of the 19 batters he faced, while allowing only one hit and one walk on 72 pitches.

Then after left-handed reliever José A. Ferrer struck out lefty power hitter Munetaka Murakami to end the sixth, Castillo came out of the bullpen to open the seventh. Castillo pitched a scoreless seventh and eighth, but ran into trouble in the ninth and was charged for both runs in Seattle’s 2-1 loss.

Castillo hit a batter and allowed one hit and two walks across 2 1/3 innings of relief. He struck out four and threw 54 pitches before being replaced by closer Andrés Muñoz, who surrendered back-to-back RBI singles. It was the first regular-season relief appearance of Castillo’s 10-year MLB career.

Castillo will now be back in his usual starting role Monday night, with Miller now set to make the first relief appearance of his four-year MLB career.

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