Salk: The secret to Bryce Miller’s dominant ALCS start for Mariners

Oct 13, 2025, 11:23 AM | Updated: 7:10 pm

Editor, Seattle Sports

The 2025 season had not seen the best of third-year Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Bryce Miller.

Until Game 1 of the ALCS on Sunday night in Toronto.

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Miller’s year has been marred by injury and inconsistency, with elbow inflammation twice landing him on the injured list during a regular season where he went 4-6 with a 5.68 ERA in 18 starts. It was well off his stellar 2024 campaign where the Texas A&M product was one of the best pitchers in the American League with a 2.94 ERA and 3.4 bWAR in 31 starts.

So when Miller took the mound against the Blue Jays on Sunday, on short rest for the first time in his pro career no less, the expectations weren’t high. Maybe he could give the Mariners four innings before handing the ball over to a bullpen that was taxed just two days earlier in an epic 15-inning Game 5 ALDS marathon.

Instead, Miller had the night of his life.

The 27-year-old right-hander shook off George Springer’s solo home run on the first pitch thrown and a 27-pitch first inning, holding the Blue Jays to a single run on just two hits and three walks over six gigantic innings for the Mariners.

“What he did last night was superhuman. That was incredible,” Mike Salk said Monday morning on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk. “What we saw from Bryce Miller, short rest, elbow issues all year, on the road, no safety net with no bullpen behind him, against at least a legitimate offense – oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. What an incredible performance.”

Miller’s start came just four days after he started the Mariners’ Game 4 ALDS loss in Detroit. Compared to that game against the Tigers, though, Miller’s velocity across the board on his six pitches was up on Sunday.

Salk has a reason for that: how often he was able to pitch from a full windup with no runners on base compared to from the stretch when there was traffic. After the first inning in Toronto, Miller faced just three batters with a runner on base.

“One thing that I did hear when I was over (at T-Mobile Park for Game 5 of the ALDS) on Friday was that some of the velocity concerns we talked about in Game 4 for Bryce had less to do with how deep into the game he had gone and more to do with pitching out of the stretch versus in the windup,” Salk said. “The Blue Jays were totally unable to get him in the stretch very often, therefore they ended up seeing great velocity – in fact, the most he’d had in any start this year.”

Miller’s outing on Sunday drew praise from his manager.

“The job that Bryce Miller did tonight was phenomenal,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said in a postgame press conference. “Coming back on short rest, getting behind early there with the first pitch of the game… I thought after that first inning, he went into a different gear. And you saw him getting ahead using all his stuff. The fastball kept coming out really good.

“It was one of those situations where you knew the bullpen was ready to bail him out at any time, but it just kept coming out and he kept throwing the ball so well. To give us six strong innings, especially coming out of that first inning, and the ability that he had tonight to kind of close the door was phenomenal.”