SAN FRANCISCO -- The Luis Castillo that most in the Majors know by now had never actually met the Luis Castillo who joined the Mariners for a spot start on Friday against the Giants until this spring.
But “La Piedra” had heard of the newcomer for quite some time.
“I would always get tagged [as him] on Instagram,” the three-time All-Star said through an interpreter. “People would be like, 'Good job!' you know. But I never met him until he signed with us.”
Both hail from the Dominican Republic, and those Instagram posts were mostly of images and videos of Luis Felipe Castillo pitching for the ?guilas Cibae?as in the Dominican Winter League each season from 2018-22.
Not many knew of Luis F. Castillo during Spring Training after he signed a Minors deal in January, other than his nickname that stood out on the player schedules that were distributed on a large videoboard every morning.
There was a pitcher listed as “Pebble,” which prompted more reporting to see who that was, because there was no player on their massive camp roster with that last name.
After some hard-hitting questions, the answer was revealed as a humorous tie to Luis M. Castillo -- who is obviously “The Rock” -- while trying to help make Luis F. Castillo feel like part of the group. The veteran actually made an extra effort to bring the newcomer under his wing over those six weeks in Arizona.
“We've had a lot of conversations, actually,” Luis M. Castillo said, “because I saw him pitch and his arm angle is very similar to mine, and the way the ball moves, it's kind of identical to mine. So some of the things we've been talking about are just kind of the preparation and how to take care of yourself.”
Now that we’re in regular-season territory, though, the oddity gets a little more bemusing.
The Castillo tandem became just the second set of pitchers in MLB history to start consecutive games for the same team, joining Bobby Joseph Jones and Bobby Mitchell Jones, who started back-to-back games for the Mets from July 3-4, 2000 -- then remarkably, those two did it again for the Padres from Aug. 10-11, 2002.
“I think players are going to be confused when they go out there, because they're going to think I'm the one pitching,” Luis M. Castillo said. “But I think they're going to see some good stuff out there from him.”
“The Pebble” is probably only sticking around for the one start -- here in an effort to help the Mariners get through this stretch before they return George Kirby from the injured list -- but his presence did create quite a few quirks.