What Bryce Miller said about move to Mariners’ bullpen

After throwing a bullpen session Wednesday at T-Mobile Park, Seattle Mariners right-hander Bryce Miller was given the news that the team planned to move him from the starting rotation to the bullpen.

“Definitely a weird day,” Miller told reporters at Rogers Centre in Toronto on Friday.

Mariners move right-hander Bryce Miller to bullpen

Miller is moving to the bullpen on what manager Dan Wilson described as a “short-term basis” as the Mariners try to hunt down a playoff berth over the season’s final month. The club also hasn’t ruled out a return to the starting rotation for Miller this season.

The Mariners and Miller both said they view him as a starter in the long-term, but for now the right-hander said he’s ready to help his club in a new role.

“Any time I have the ball, my goal is to put a zero, whether that be the first inning or the third inning or the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth – whatever it is,” Miller said. “So, I plan on going out and putting up a zero until they tell me I’m not throwing.”

The Mariners are hoping that Miller’s stuff will play up in a shorter role coming out of the pen. He’s already averaging the highest velocity on his four-seamer during his career at 96 mph – up 0.8 mph from his previous career high in 2024.

Miller said he’ll lean on his strengths while pitching in relief but also also continue to use all seven of his pitches.

“I think my best pitches have been, over the last couple of years, the fastball and the the splitter,” he said. “I’m not going to abandon the other five pitches. I think all seven of them are good and they have their purpose. But if you’re only getting three outs, you don’t always need all seven. So, I’ll just kind of read the situation and read the hitter and see what that specific day needs and kind of go from there. But I plan on continuing to work on all seven pitches and have them when I need them. But yeah, we’ll lean on my strengths.”

The right-hander also acknowledged his recent struggles on the mound.

“I’m not acting like I pitched great the last month,” Miller said. “I acknowledge that the last couple of outings definitely haven’t gone my way and haven’t gone how I wanted to, and I think that just comes down to executing a pitch here, a pitch there, and getting outs and taking care of business in the high-leverage situations. I didn’t do that this month.”

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