Mariners piggyback plan returns with each starting pitcher set to take part

Adam Jude, The Seattle Times on Jun 16, 2026

Published in Baseball

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

SEATTLE — Jump on, everybody. The piggyback is back.

The Mariners are reviving their piggyback pitching plan this week, with one significant alteration: All six of their starting pitchers will rotate through and have one piggyback outing through the All-Star break.

This was a “unanimous” decision with all six starters involved in the planning, general manager Justin Hollander said Tuesday.

The Mariners’ six starting pitchers — Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryan Woo, Bryce Miller, Luis Castillo and Emerson Hancock — met with manager Dan Wilson and pitching coaches Pete Woodworth and Trent Blank on Sunday in Washington, D.C., to talk through rotation options.

The starting pitchers were asked to contribute any ideas they might have.

Blank, the team’s director of pitching strategies, spent much of last week working through a dozen or so machinations of scheduling options, and then presented two detailed ideas to the starting pitchers.

“I feel like Trent was up for 36 straight hours trying to work through what the optimal thing was for everybody,” Hollander said. “And anyway you did it, it wasn’t going to be ideal or perfect for everybody, but (they tried) to pick the options that made the most sense for everybody.”

The pitchers and coaches again met Tuesday afternoon at T-Mobile Park to finalize details of the new schedule, which features three piggyback pairings for the six starters over the 21 games leading up to the All-Star break.

The plan agreed on, Hollander said, is the most “equitable” for everyone.

“We’re asking each of our starters to take one of those,” Wilson said. “I think our guys really have taken to the idea. We talk a lot about that group and how they work well together, how they lean into each other, how they are all about this team and about winning — and they understand just how important this stretch is.

“All these guys are on board with doing what’s best for our club right now, and what’s best for our bullpen.”

Gilbert, Kirby and Woo will start the three games against the Orioles, in order, this week with no restrictions.

For Friday’s series opener against Boston, the piggyback will return and feature Miller as the starter, with a pitch count of roughly 75-80 pitches. Castillo will follow out of the bullpen.

Hollander said it was just a coincidence that the scheduled worked to restart the piggyback with Miller and Castillo, the two pitchers who were asked to work in tandem the first three times the team instituted the plan in mid-May.

The Mariners returned to a six-man rotation for their last two turns through the pitching schedule, doing so largely because the early-June schedule included 16 games over a 17-day stretch.

The team now has regular days off for each of the next three weeks, through mid-July, and staying on a seven-day routine is “too much” time between appearances for starting pitchers.

Club president Jerry Dipoto has said the team is also not inclined to ask one starting pitcher to move to a full-time bullpen role. If that pitcher was then needed to later return to the starting rotation, Dipoto said it would take that pitcher three or four weeks to build enough arm strength to be a regular starter.

The team has not made public a detailed schedule beyond Friday.

“As Jerry said before, I don’t think we’re going to revolutionize pitching in any way,” Hollander said. “ … But for this group that we have right now, I think it’s the right thing to do. And I think everybody landed on that unanimously for this group, and I think the starters began to understand and embrace it when we talked to them on Sunday.”