After winning eight of their last nine games, the Seattle Mariners will embark on a lengthy road trip through the East Coast.

The M's will begin in Detroit, playing three games against the Tigers before heading to Baltimore for four and Washington for three. It's a grueling trip that involves playing 10 games in 10 days.

In order to help alleviate some of the pressure on the starting pitchers, the M's are ditching their piggyback plan and rolling with a six-man rotation for at least two turns through the rotation. That means that Bryce Miller will start his own game on Saturday and Luis Castillo will get his own game on Sunday.

While it's understandable that the M's want to keep both Miller and Castillo stretched out, and that they want to give their starters a little break, the six-man rotation makes me very nervous, as I outlined on the most recent 'Refuse to Lose Territory' podcast.

"I am telling you that I understand the motivations behind this, and I can understand all the benefits behind this, but I also see the pitfalls, and that is what scares me. That is what worries me.

Because, play a lot of the scenarios here that I can envision in my head, they're not particularly good for the Seattle Mariners, right?

The bullpen is short. There are seven guys in the bullpen instead of eight. So because of that, I have to imagine that at some point you're going to see a bullpen arm pushed maybe more than you would like them to be. You're going to see them overexposed.

Alex Hoppe would be one of those guys. You probably will see it from Eduard Bazardo. You will probably see it from Cooper Criswell.

And therefore, let's say Bazardo throws two innings on Saturday. Does that mean that he's down again on Sunday? Probably. And if so, then the bullpen is really two guys short.

Let's say Cooper Criswell gets overextended, and he throws 2.1. So now, not only is he probably down for an extra day or two and the bullpen is short, but who's to say that on pitch 34 of his outing, he doesn't give up a double that ends up coming back to hurt the Mariners in that particular game because he's been overexposed?

The bullpen is going to get taxed, and it's going to get pushed in a way that it probably shouldn't get pushed, and that is because of the six-man rotation.

And again, I get why they're doing it. I'm not even necessarily here to criticize it. I'm telling you that the Mariners are kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't in this situation.

If the Mariners go to the six-man rotation, the bullpen is underfunded, and there are pitfalls with that. If they go to the piggyback again, obviously there are pitfalls to that. If they just put Castillo or Miller in the bullpen, there are pitfalls to that.

We always say you can never have too much pitching, but in this case the Mariners have too much pitching, and you are picking from a lesser of evils in this scenario.

So I'm not a fan of this, but I can't tell you that any of the other situations would necessarily have been better."

And beyond that, Hoppe is the only member of the bullpen that is able to be sent down freely to Triple-A, so there's only one optionable roster spot in the 'pen, making things more tenuous. If the bullpen is taxed, is Dan Wilson forced to stick with his starters longer than he wants to, and does that cause issues? It's all possible.

The Mariners play the Tigers on Friday afternoon at 3:40 p.m. PT. Bryan Woo is 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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