SEATTLE -- Bryce Miller sat in the 95-97 mph range during a roughly 25-pitch, up-and-down live batting practice session on Saturday afternoon while experiencing no limitations mixing in his secondaries, evoking a big thumbs up from Mariners pitching coach Pete Woodworth.
And Miller was optimistic enough after that he thought a Minor League rehab assignment could be on the immediate horizon.
“Not fully sure on that, but assuming I bounce back the next few days really good, I would think that's the next step,” Miller said.
When Miller does begin that assignment, Mariners manager Dan Wilson indicated that it’d probably be of similar length to those earlier this year for George Kirby and Logan Gilbert, who each made three starts at Triple-A Tacoma before returning. Presumably, the Mariners would want Miller to approach the 75-pitch threshold before activating him.
“Obviously, it’s something where you set up a plan, but plans sometimes are adjusted along the way,” Wilson said. “We’ll just keep monitoring it as we go, but I don’t anticipate it being much different than what we’ve done before.”
That said, Miller has been cognizant throughout his rehab that he won’t know how fully his arm has recovered until he pitches deeper into a game -- as in, into the third and potentially fourth inning and beyond.
“It's tough to get 100 percent confident before I get there,” Miller said.
The velocity was obviously encouraging, but perhaps even more so was that he didn’t experience limitations throwing his offspeed and breaking balls.
“I made a little tweak to the slider, and I'm hoping that it helps it out a little bit,” Miller said. “It'd been kind of all over the place earlier in the year, so hopefully I’ll get used to that and go from there. But yeah, the curveball and the splitter felt really good, so I'm happy with where those were for day one.”
The adjustment on the slider was results-based and not made to account for how his arm felt throwing it.
“For some reason, this year, it's been hard for me to throw that pitch upper-80s like I have in the past,” Miller said, “A little grip change and moving a little bit more left than it was. And so, it feels closer to a fastball for me, so I think it should be easier to throw harder, and then hopefully locate better."
It was Miller’s first time facing hitters since being placed on the 15-day injured list for the second time this season with right elbow inflammation on June 10 (retroactive to June 7), as lefty-hitting Miles Mastrobuoni and righty-hitting Ben Williamson stood in.
Miller, who began throwing off a mound again on July 5, transitioned his rehab to the club’s Spring Training facility in Arizona during the All-Star break, where he threw to a dummy positioned in the batter’s box. He didn’t begin throwing his secondaries until about a week and a half ago.
“We've got time to dial those in,” Miller said. “It's just that those are the second half of the build up, getting used to throwing spin at high intent and then throwing spin at high intent in-zone. So, yeah, I think that'll come especially in the next few weeks.”
Miller has been dealing with a bone spur in the back of his pitching elbow throughout the season, which significantly impacted his effectiveness before first landing on the IL on May 14. He made two starts upon returning on May 31 before landing back on the shelf, after which he received a cortisone shot.
Overall, he has a 5.73 ERA (64 ERA+, where league average is 100) in 10 starts, over which the Mariners went 4-6, compared to a 2.94 ERA (125 ERA+) last season, when he finished on as high of a note as any starter within their rotation.
Rookie Logan Evans has been the primary fill-in for Miller’s rotation spot in the nearly six weeks he’s been sidelined, including Saturday vs. Houston.