The Mariners plan to select right-hander Luis F. Castillo to start tomorrow evening’s game against the Giants, the club informed reporters (including Adam Jude of The Seattle Times). As Jude notes, it’ll be the second straight Mariners game started by a Luis Castillo. Seattle’s veteran right-hander of the same name tossed seven innings in yesterday’s win over Detroit.
Luis F. Castillo will be making his first major league start. The 30-year-old has three MLB relief appearances under his belt. Those came with the 2022 Tigers, for whom he tossed 3 2/3 scoreless innings with four strikeouts. Detroit sent him through outright waivers at the end of that season. Castillo signed with the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball the following offseason.
After turning in a 3.12 ERA across 49 innings for the Marines, Castillo moved to the Orix Buffaloes. He fired 94 1/3 innings of 2.96 ERA ball despite a pedestrian 19.6% strikeout rate. Castillo showed fantastic control, though, walking fewer than 5% of batters faced for the second consecutive season. The Dominican-born pitcher returned to the affiliated ranks last offseason, joining the Mariners on a minor league contract in January.
Castillo pitched five innings of three-run ball across three appearances in Spring Training. He worked 5 2/3 frames in his first Triple-A start on Sunday, allowing one run on two hits and a pair of walks. Seattle will bring him up for at least a spot start as the fifth spot in their rotation comes around. Emerson Hancock got that job out of Spring Training because of the George Kirby injury, but the former sixth overall pick couldn’t escape the first inning in his season debut. Seattle optioned him out a few days later.
The Mariners announced this afternoon that they reinstated Jorge Polanco from the paternity list. They optioned Leo Rivas and swingman Jhonathan Díaz to Triple-A Tacoma. Castillo will take Díaz’s active roster spot. The 40-man roster is at capacity, so they’ll need to make another move in that regard tomorrow.
Timing is a publicity stunt
I’m sure part of it is capitalizing on the timing. However looking at younger Castillo #s he seems to have earned the call up to fill a spit start.
Just days ago I posted they should select him, this is fantastic hahaha
Has it happened before where the same team started different pitchers with the same name in consecutive games? I remember Wilbur Wood starting both games of a doubleheader with the White Sox. For those who don’t know him, he was a knuckleball pitcher who that season if I remember correctly both won and lost 20 games.
@Dewey I wondered the same thing. I got ask tho, didn’t u kind of answer your own question here?
The Mets have had two guys named Bobby Jones and a pair of Bob Millers, a righty and a lefty in each case, but I doubt either set started consecutive games.
The Miller’s did pitch in same game though. Twice I think in 62 season.
I get 2 Max Muncy’s but this team’s got 2 Luis Castillo’s. Dang.
Glitch in the matrix
We have Luis Castillo… and Luis F*****g Castillo!!!!!
Any relation to Willie F*****g Bloomquist?
“F” Scott Fitzgerald!!!!
Third cousin
Sacramento Max Muncy automatically is better with his middle name. What would make his middle name more legendary is if he was from Minnesota. He however is not but both Muncy’s have the same birthday August 25. Just 12 years apart.
That’s crazy about the Bdays. That’s first I’ve heard that.
Giants immediately need to acquire Wilmer Flores from the Tigers and have him be the starting pitcher for tomorrow’s game
The double name train power game! The Mariners message to the rest of the league: we’re gonna throw every Luis Castillo we got at ya!
The Mariners overvalued their starters this off season, they really need a good bat or two.
When a team has to call up a 30-year-old journeyman to make the first start of his career is a very weird time to be making the point that they surely should have traded from their surplus of pitching.
BookBook – thats a good point, didnt really look into the depth of their rotation beyond the starting five, I shot from the hip on that one mostly based on my having overrated Seattle preseason. I had initially liked them to win the division but that was heavily based on how much I liked their starting pitching, and how much I like Kirby and Gilbert. But Woo and Miller were sort of at a high in terms of trade value, both having excellent rookie seasons, both in PreArb, Id say either would have brought back a big haul having so much team control in place, Id even go as far as to say that either could bring a return close to what the White Sox got for Crochet. That would be Meidroth and Teel, both are MLB ready bats, Braden Montgomery, projects to be the best offensive player of the three although I like Meidroth contact hitting more. And we got Wikelman Gonzalez, a SP prospect who I like and think has a shot at being a 3/4 or better, he has a great slider. A trade like that is exactly what Seattle needs.
At 3-4 you have to question everything they’ve ever done. There is no such thing as an overreaction when there are only 155 games to go.
What’s wrong with Bryce Miller then? Oh man, we don’t need another injury to our starting rotation! Fml.
Kirby is hurt. Hancock needs to get control of his secondary stuff. Evans and Garcia need to build up a bit more. Somebody has to be the 5th starter.
I thought it was Miller’s turn in the rotation. He was the guy penciled in for it until this change.
Ahhh. My bad. Was reading through comments from the actually ignorant SOBs out there 🤣
Keep ’em coming. I think there were three Bob Millers playing MLB at the same time once, many years ago.
Two on the Mets. Casey Stengel called one of them “Nelson.”
Remember when the the Tigers had a starting outfield trio with the last name “Garcia”?
Wow, didnt know cloning was legal in MLB
Whose baseball card
That will be confusing in the clubhouse!
He’s no Larry Bernandez
MLB needs to investigate for possible Cloning Violations…
“So you’re telling me THIS one only cost $760,000? and THAT one costs over $20 million????”
DFA coming up…..
MLB’s Players Union really needs to go the route of the acting union and force players to not share names. They are public figures and someone sharing your name (even if it your legal name) could cause confusion that could harm your earning potential off the field.
Might as well. Looks like the Asian leagues helped finetune his craft. All the best with his start tomorrow against the Giants.
Two Luis Castillo’s joining two Max Muncy’s, two Will Smith’s and 3 Luis Garcia’s…
FWIW Friday’s Mariner/Giant game in San Francisco is a scheduled day game as the home opener.
muskie73: And that matters why?
The MLBTR lede refers to ” tomorrow evening’s game against the Giants.”
The Jones Boys did start back-to-back games on July 3-4, 2000. In both those games, the starting 2B for the opponent Marlins was Luis Castillo. This according to Elias and MLB.com.
Let’s see, picking anyone from the active roster would be an easy choice; this ownership is ruining the franchise.