Mariners walk off Diamondbacks on Victor Robles' broken-bat infield single

Tim Booth, The Seattle Times on May 31, 2026

Published in Baseball

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Farewell, to the Mariners piggyback … for now. You were awkwardly executed and oddly effective.

The Mariners ran out their pitching combo of Bryce Miller and Luis Castillo for the final time — for the time being— Sunday afternoon in the series finale against Arizona. And like the previous two times the Mariners used this odd pairing, it was highly successful.

Miller tossed five shutout innings before giving way to Castillo, who allowed one earned run in five innings as the M’s beat the Diamondbacks 3-2 in 10 innings to complete a three-game sweep before 41,897 at T-Mobile Park.

Victor Robles delivered the winning hit in the 10 th with a broken-bat infield single that scored Randy Arozarena with one out.

The M’s won their sixth straight, their longest win streak of this season and longest since winning seven consecutive games during their September charge last season. They hit two more home runs — this time from Cole Young and Dominic Canzone — giving them 10 long balls in the three-game set.

And for however strangely structured and at times poorly communicated this piggyback situation was, the raw numbers say it worked. But it’s ending for now as with the M’s in the beginning stages of playing 16 games in 17 days, the rotation will go to being a six-man setup the next time through.

After that? It’ll depend on many factors, with the health of the entire rotation likely at the top of the list. But at least for the next couple of weeks, we can now retire the piggyback phrase.

This time, it was Miller going first and he continued to be overpowering since returning from the injured list. Miller pitched five scoreless inning and has allowed four earned runs total over 21 innings since making his season debut on May 13 in Houston. He struck out six and allowed only one hit. In four of his five innings Sunday, Miller didn’t allow a base runner. His entire arsenal of pitches seemed to be working, getting strikeouts with the splitter, fastball, sweeper and slider.

Miller needed only 71 pitches to get through his five innings. In every other circumstance, Miller would have kept going, but Castillo took the mound in the sixth.

And while Miller cruised, Castillo twice ran into trouble and wasn’t helped by his defense either time.

Arizona pulled even in the sixth after Ketel Marte walked and went to third with one out on Corbin Carroll’s ground ball double to center field. Young and J.P. Crawford both hesitated going after the grounder and Julio Rodríguez was late getting to it.

Crawford nabbed Geraldo Perdomo’s grounder and threw out Marte at home, but a wayward slider by Castillo to Nolan Arenado skipped under Jhonny Pereda’s glove and allowed Carroll to score the tying run.

In the eighth, Josh Naylor threw Tim Tawa’s sacrifice bunt attempt into center field after Gabriel Moreno led off with a bloop single. It was a poor decision and Marte’s sacrifice fly pulled Arizona even. Young, did help limit the damage with a leaping grab on Perdomo’s liner to end the inning.

The M’s stayed with Castillo in the 10th inning and after a sac bunt and walk put runners at the corners with one out, Castillo struck out Adrian Del Castillo and Marte grounded out.;

Castillo’s final line: five innings, two hits, one earned run and three strikeouts.

For most of the series, the M’s offense came via the home run. Young clobbered his first home run since April 25 with a solo shot leading off the second inning and Canzone added a homer for the second straight game in the bottom of the sixth.

Canzone’s homer was the 10th in the series by the M’s. The last time the M’s homered 10 times in a three-game series was last September in Atlanta, which consisted of consecutive five-homer games.

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