It’s the Monday of a homestand, which means it’s time for Mariners GM Justin Hollander’s weekly injury update. Thankfully, this week the update is short, and centers on Bryce Miller, the lone Mariner on the IL who is close to a return.
Miller threw a live BP over the weekend and reportedly came out of the outing feeling good with no pain. He’s scheduled to throw again this Friday, after the team leaves town; he will either throw another live BP here at the park or begin a rehab assignment with Tacoma.
Hollander says the likelihood is the live BP to build his pitch count before they send Miller out on a rehab assignment; the team also prefers the more controlled environment at the park at this stage in his rehab journey. Hollander says the eventual goal when Miller returns to the team is to get him back to a traditional starter’s workload of 80-plus pitches and five innings plus so as to not tax the bullpen (farewell to staffer Ryan Blake’s dreams of the Miller-Evans piggyback start), so the goal right now is to be able to build bulk so they can stretch Miller out more quickly when he does begin a rehab assignment, so don’t rush out and buy those Rainiers tickets just yet.
...Unless of course you’re a huge Collin Snider fan (where the Sniheads at), as he is with the Rainiers working on a rehab assignment. Right now Snider is working on building volume, specifically being able to pitch multiple innings, or “up-and-downs,” pitching an inning, then sitting down, then going back out there. He’ll also need the experience of pitching on back-to-back days or twice in three days before he’s ready to be activated back to the team.
While not close to a return, both Victor Robles and Ryan Bliss will be making appearances this homestand and the next. Robles is here this week, doing some long toss with a rehab ball (like a normal baseball, but lighter) and taking one-handed swings; Bliss will visit the team next homestand. Both continue to progress steadily along their rehab journeys, but neither have resumed baseball activities yet.
One other player who is a little further along on his rehab journey than those two: Gregory Santos was scheduled to meet with the team doctor today to get clearance to move forward with baseball activities.
On the minor-league side, top prospect Jonny Farmelo continues to progress from his oblique injury. He started full swings last week, and the team anticipates him to return to an affiliate by mid-August. The one upside of Farmelo’s second serious injury in his young career is that rehabbing the oblique also allowed him more time to bounce back from the knee injury that kept him out all of last season, so he should be full go when he returns in August. As noted in Max’s MiLB recap today, Cade Marlowe and Brock Rodden have both made rehab appearances in the ACL; they’ll return to their respective affiliates within the week.
One final note: making the GM available on a regular basis for questions about literally any injured player in the system is a courtesy the Mariners extend, especially as it often requires Hollander to play the role of a doctor on TV, and one we don’t take for granted. If you ever have specific questions about a player (especially a minor-leaguer, as those updates are harder to come by), feel free to drop them in the comments, message on Twitter/Bluesky, send an e-mail, write your question on a Hotdog From Heaven and toss it into the press box, whatever your preferred method of communication is.
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