Passan on Mariners: ‘Everyone needs to be on board’ with piggyback

On its face, the Seattle Mariners’ decision to piggyback starting pitchers Luis Castillo and Bryce Miller is going well.

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Through two attempts at the rarely used tactic, Castillo and Miller have combined to allow just four runs in 16 innings (2.25 ERA), and while the first game last week took a turn at the end, the M’s rolled to a 9-2 win over the Athletics Monday night after Castillo started and Miller threw the final five innings.

The conversation surrounding the teaming up of Castillo and Miller in the same game has not been limited to just the results on the field, though.

“I mean, if we want to just talk about in terms of effectiveness, the Mariners won 9-2 yesterday, and that’s pretty good,” ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan said Tuesday morning to Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk. “But effectiveness is only as good as the contentment of the people involved with it.”

And that’s where things are less clear.

Castillo was clearly unhappy in the dugout Monday after his night ended following four scoreless innings. And even after wrapping up Seattle’s win, Miller said “This setup’s not very comfortable” in a postgame interview on Mariners TV.

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That put a damper on what was a big win for the Mariners over the team they’re chasing for the AL West lead, as Monday’s victory cut their deficit behind the A’s to just 1 1/2 games. That means if Seattle wins again Tuesday and Wednesday, it would pass the A’s in the standings. But that’s not where the conversation has been focused in the hours since Monday’s game.

Passan explained his view on the Mariners’ current predicament of having six healthy starting pitchers and neither changing to a six-man rotation nor sending one of the pitchers full-time to the bullpen.

“Managing people and personalities is as much of a part of the success of a team as anything. Guys need to be bought into what you’re doing,” he said. “And if they’re not, they’re just not going to be as effective and as good at it. And I think that’s the situation that we’re in right now with the Mariners. It’s a really difficult one because while you hoped that this would be the solution, I’m not sure that long term it’s necessarily going to be.”

With there being apparent discontent from Castillo and Miller with their current roles, there’s an attached risk.

“The communication in that clubhouse and with the people involved in this, it needs to be better. Not everyone’s going to be happy with their job all the time,” Passan said. “… When you have unhappy people inside of a locker room, doesn’t matter what the sport is, it’s almost like a live wire that’s sitting there and everyone just doesn’t want to touch it. You avoid it. And it can be bad.

“Let’s put it this way: I think the Mariners’ priority right now needs to be ensuring that the players feel happy with their roles. And whether that’s selling them on this current structure and making them believe it somehow, incentivizing it, whatever it may be, everyone needs to be on board with what they’re doing. And if that’s not the case, I just feel like the performance is not going to continue going in the same direction.”

Hear the full Brock and Salk conversation with ESPN’s Jeff Passan in the podcast at this link or in the player below. Catch Brock and Salk from 6-10 a.m. weekdays on Seattle Sports.

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