Just two days after Luis Castillo threw 92 pitches in a seven-inning gem for the Mariners, they're set to start Luis Castillo again on Friday.
Confused? Oh, maybe it's worth mentioning that the Mariners have two pitchers named Luis Castillo. The one you're probably thinking of -- the 32-year-old three-time All-Star -- is Luis Miguel Castillo, who outdueled Tarik Skubal on Wednesday. The new Castillo on the block is Luis Felipe Castillo, a 30-year-old righty who signed a Minor League deal with Seattle in January.
It'll be Luis F. who is expected to take the mound at Oracle Park on Friday in what will be his first MLB game since 2022, when he made three relief appearances for Detroit. He spent the past two seasons in Japan¡¯s Nippon Professional Baseball, posting a 3.01 ERA with 108 strikeouts and 21 walks over 143 1/3 innings.
What we need next is Julio Rodriguez in the Mariners' lineup next to Julio Rodr¨ªguez. That's right! Seattle has a catcher in the Minors named Julio Esteban Rodriguez, not to be confused with the superstar Julio Yamel Rodr¨ªguez.
This all recalls the halcyon days of the Mets' Bobby Jones era in 2000, back when the Amazin's had both righty Bobby J. Jones and lefty Bobby M. Jones on the pitching staff. They too once made back-to-back starts, on July 3-4 of that year against the Marlins. Get a load of this: Leading off and playing second for the Marlins both of those games? Luis (Antonio) Castillo!
In fact, according to the Elias Sports Bureau (yes, we really called them to check this), the Mets' Joneses were the only known instance of pitchers with the same names starting back-to-back games before the Mariners' Castillos since at least 1900. Though Elias' researchers did say it's hard to know for sure in a sport where ballplayers are logged in databases with names like Oil Can (real name: Dennis), Home Run (John) and Catfish (James).