Brady's Spin: Seattle Mariners Have Mishandled Pitching Heading into Astros Series
The Seattle Mariners released their pitching probables for this weekend's series against the Houston Astros and the plan certainly leaves something to be desired.
The M's will start Luis Castillo on Friday night against Hunter Brown while going with George Kirby on Saturday against Framber Valdez. The final game of the series will feature Bryan Woo against Ronel Blanco.
The Mariners enter this series at just 1.0 game up on the Astros in the American League West, so this series is absolutely the biggest one of the year. Here's why the M's plan is problematic:
WHY NO LOGAN GILBERT?
Logan Gilbert earned an All-Star selection this season and has been the team's most valuable pitcher thus far, yet he's not pitching. Why is that? Gilbert is on pace to post the lowest WHIP in team history and will absolutely receive Cy Young votes this year. He last pitched on Sunday (and did not appear in the All-Star Game), so if he had started the Sunday game of this series, he would have been operating on greater than usual rest.
Furthermore, not starting against the Astros leads him to start in the following series against the Los Angeles Angels, who he just started against last weekend. As good as Gilbert is, it's tough to double up on opponents that quickly, so he doesn't appear to be set up for great success in that one, either.
THE PLAN WITH BRYAN WOO:
According to Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times, the Mariners didn't want to go too long between starts for Bryan Woo, which could point to why he's starting on Sunday. He last pitched last Friday against the Angels, so that makes sense, but it begs the question about the plan with him in general.
Woo came off the injured list for that Friday start after just one rehab start. That start was shaky as well, as he gave up two runs in two innings and also didn't show great command. Couldn't he have made a rehab start last Saturday instead, and then made another this week so that he was ready to come back for the Angels series? It seems as if the M's rushed him back a little too quickly, and the results showed in that Friday start in which he failed to make it through 4.0 innings. And now, given what they did with him, he's kind of forced into starting in this series, which is a very tough matchup for him.
Game 1 of the series is on Friday night at 7:10 p.m. PT.
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