Seattle Mariners: Who Will Be the #5 Starter?
The Winner is
The Seattle Mariners had 15 different pitchers make starts in 2021. No team had less than eight different pitchers start games last season. It’s a safe bet that the M’s will likely exceed 10 again. Hopefully, a majority of the turnover will happen from the fifth spot in the rotation. Then again, should the M’s lock down a fifth starter that works out, maybe they end up with less than 10.
Trying to “choose” or guess who the guy will be that wins the open rotation spot is hard. There are just too many variables at this point in time. All of these guys have a chance. The easy copout is whoever performs the best during spring training will win the spot. I will try my best not to use the easy out.
In my opinion, the Mariners will rotate through the fifth starter spot unless one of the big four gets injured, then the process gets accelerated. Having enough quality starters will be important in 2022 as the Mariners work toward ending their playoff drought.
The first person up would likely be one of the rookies. But not one of the top prospects has pitched above Double-A. Instead, it would be a McCaughan or someone similar within the organization.
Darren McCaughan is the 7th player in MLB history (since 1901) to throw 5.0+ hitless innings in his Major League debut.
— Mariners PR (@MarinersPR) July 21, 2021
Joe Swenson is a lifelong baseball fanatic and Seattle sports fan. He is also an award-winning international playwright. His play “The Final Out” is currently being workshopped with a regional theater in upstate New York as part of the Nazareth University Theater Department.