This weekend in Detroit against the Tigers, the Seattle Mariners will ditch their piggyback experiment for the time being and instead move to a six-man starting rotation. 

The Mariners will give Bryce Miller his own start on Saturday and Luis Castillo will get his own start on Sunday.

While I find the six-man rotation problematic, it's clearly being done for a few reasons.

1) To limit the innings on the starting rotation arms as a whole in an effort to keep them fresh as the season wears on.

2) To keep both Castillo and Miller stretched out as starters in case any of the other pitchers get injured.

While the piggyback situation bothered a lot of fans, the fact remains that Castillo actually pitched very well under the arrangement, giving up just three earned runs in 11.1 innings. And if he pitches well as a true starter again, I'm starting to wonder if it's possible that the M's could trade him before the Aug. 3 trade deadline.

I discussed the thought process on the most recent 'Refuse to Lose Territory' podcast.

"I'm not a huge fan of trading Luis Castillo either...I like to know what I know. I know that pitchers get injured. I know that Luis Castillo has been largely healthy. So trading a guy who has been largely healthy and durable when I have a feeling I'm going to need somebody like that later, that is a really hard thing for me to reconcile.

But I am wondering, are we getting to a point where that's possible?

So hear this out. The Mariners have elected to let Luis Castillo start at least two more times. So he's gonna start on what I think is June 7th and June, whatever, I don't even know, 14th, 15th, 16th, whatever it ends up being.

So they're going to let him start at least until the middle of June. And so the pitch count's going to be high. Castillo's going to start.

If Luis Castillo pitches well, well, he will clearly reestablish value. He'll reestablish value to the Mariners, but he'll also reestablish value to the rest of the league and their perception of him.

So the deeper we get into this season, the more possible I think it becomes that Kade Anderson and/or Ryan Sloan become answers for this ball club, right?

If you had told me in April, "Brady, I want to trade Luis Castillo because I have Kade Anderson," I would've said no, right? It's too soon. It's too early. We haven't seen enough from Kade, innings limits. We haven't seen it.

The deeper we get into this season, Kade Anderson and Ryan Sloan become options for this ball club.

Now, again, if somebody gets hurt today, then the Mariners are going to need Luis Castillo to fill in that rotation spot. But if we go 2.5 or 3 more weeks and everybody's healthy and everybody's pitching well, well, we end up in this same six-man-for-five-spot thing.

And if you want to alleviate that, then maybe Luis Castillo getting dealt is a way to do that.

And then if somebody gets hurt subsequently and Castillo's gone, then maybe Kade Anderson is able to be the plug-and-play guy."

Castillo has been with the Mariners since being acquired in 2022 from the Cincinnati Reds. He was an All-Star for the Mariners in 2023 and helped them win playoff series in both 2022 and 2025.

The Mariners and Tigers will play on Friday afternoon at 3:40 p.m. PT. Bryan Woo will be on the mound.

You can listen to the newest 'Refuse to Lose Territory' podcast here, featuring Mariners broadcaster Ryon Healy. You can also watch the episode on YouTube below.

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