How switch-pitching prospect's routine is evolving

This story was excerpted from Daniel Kramer’s Mariners Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

SEATTLE -- The Mariners are still waiting to determine if the minor ankle injury that switch-pitcher Jurrangelo Cijntje sustained in his most recent outing will necessitate more recovery time, or if he’ll be able to make his scheduled start on Wednesday at High-A Everett.

But regardless, Seattle’s most fascinating prospect should be back soon.

“Don’t anticipate any kind of lengthy absence whatsoever,” Mariners general manager Justin Hollander said over the weekend.

Cijntje also dealt with a minor right triceps injury in his start prior, on May 31, that Hollander described as a “vibrating issue” that led to the club skipping his next start. Moving forward, if he returns on Wednesday, that would be the day of the week that he pitches.

“He said he had it a couple times in college, and it was never a big deal,” Hollander said. “We obviously skipped a start, had him throw a bullpen and then throw an aggressive live [batting practice] to make sure that the symptoms weren’t reproducible. He felt good.”

Beyond the brief health blips, the work-in-progress routine that Cijntje began the season with has expectedly taken on tweaks, as he’s now exclusively making a once-per-week start as a right-hander and sprinkling in lefty matchups within those outings -- compared with the exclusively, one-inning lefty relief appearances that he was making four days after his starts in April.

“The biggest thing for us was just trying to adjust and listen to his body and listen to where he was,” Mariners director of player development Justin Toole said, “and just kind of managing the fatigue, managing how he felt, and just with what he'd done in the past. As we sat down with the group, it just seemed like, 'Hey, this might be a little too much,' so we kind of pulled back a little bit.”

Cijntje -- rated as the Mariners' No. 8 prospect by MLB Pipeline -- surrendered nine runs in those three relief outings but has posted a 2.98 ERA in 10 outings as a starter.

Since the transition, Cijntje has faced just nine lefty batters while pitching left-handed, with one hit, four walks and no strikeouts over 1 1/3 innings. As a righty and against righties, he’s surrendered eight hits, two walks with two hit-by-pitches and 21 strikeouts to 64 batters in 18 innings.

“We're trying to find those pockets where it's a left vs. left, or at least finding a way where he's not switching back and forth a ton,” Toole said, “but where it's a pocket where he's maybe starting off left-handed, then switching right-handed vs. right, left, right ... trying to find those pockets. Again, it's hard to do in a game because it's ever-evolving, and you can't really tell the other team how to create the batting order, but that's the plan.”

Cijntje has been included in the scouting process for those matchups on a per-start basis.

“Also, understanding in the development of going out there and finding ways to get some pitches in left-handed is better than no pitches left-handed,” Toole said. “So, trying to balance those two things in his development.”

Since selecting Cijntje with the No. 15 overall pick in last year’s Draft and signing him to a $4,880,900 bonus, the Mariners have expressed that they view him as a right-handed starter first with the lefty skill second.

“The biggest thing that we noticed in talking to him was that he was getting tired throwing left-handed,” Toole said, adding that Cijntje never really threw exclusively lefty relief outings in college. “I think just the amount of innings and the amount of outs and the amount of pitches that he's thrown left-handed was a little bit of an adjustment for him. ... But overall, his body's been great.”

Seattle still intends to fully explore the left side’s potential, even if hiccups surface -- and again, the alterations to his routine was to be expected, given the wildly unique aspect to Cijntje’s skill set. While there have been switch-pitchers in the sport’s history, albeit very few, none have the ceiling that Cijntje possesses.

“You're trying to find ways to maximize his development,” Toole said. “And so I think, without really knowing exactly what it's going to look like, as the year goes, you know you're going to make adjustments and make tweaks here and there. And we've been able to do that, which has been awesome, and he's been a huge part of that, just being able to communicate back and forth.”