After the move was all but given away last week thanks to comments from Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto on his weekly Thursday morning show on Seattle Sports 710 AM, it seemed just a matter of announcing Seattle’s fifth starter. It turned out to be Saturday morning.
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“Matt Brash will open the season with the big league club,” Mariners manager Scott Servais told media. “He’s actually going to get a chance to pitch this time. I promised him that. He will start the fifth game of the season for us.”
Brash, Servais alluded to, was called up to the Mariners late last season but didn’t get a chance to pitch. The MLB debut for Seattle’s No. 6 prospect according to MLB Pipeline doesn’t have to wait much longer.
“It’s just a really cool moment,” said Brash, as he emerged from the practice field on Saturday when he found out he’d won the spot. “It just shows all the hard work I put in before I joined the Mariners, getting my arm in shape, getting my body in shape, it’s all paying off for that moment. I’m just super excited to be at the big league club and to help this team win games.”
It’s real this time – 197 days after his Big League draft, Matt Brash has a guarantee. Calling up in September was a maybe – maybe he could help out of the bullpen. As it turned out, Servais couldn’t find the soft landing spot on his first sortie and Brash never saw the field.
However, 23-year-old Brash may have come from experiencing more than a single major league stat line on BaseballReference.com.
“It definitely motivated me,” Brash said of his experience with the Mariners. “I learned a lot from these guys even though I was only there for a week. It definitely motivated me to come here for spring training and earn a place.”
That experience was factored into the decision to place Brash in fifth place over George Kirby. The contest was ultimately a win-win for the Mariners as Kirby did nothing to disappoint.
“We also had a really good meeting with George Kirby,” Servais said. “To understand where he stands, he didn’t have a huge workload last year. It’s really important that he continues to develop. George will be pitching for us this year, no question. I think he’s going to play a big part in how our season goes, but for now he’s going to start the season with Double-A.”
At Double-A, the Mariners can keep Kirby out of bad spring weather and better manage his workload, which will be difficult after just 67 1/3 innings in 2020. Ideally, they want him to be able to get through — and hopefully beyond — the entirety of the Big League regular season. His 2022 journey begins in Arkansas and Brash’s Minnesota as part of the Mariners’ inaugural day roster.
What a difference a few years can make. On September 17, 2020, Brash was sent by the Padres to the Mariners as a later-named player to complete a trade for reliever Taylor Williams.
“It sure was fast,” said Brash. “I always knew that with the work ethic I had and the talent I had, I would eventually get here. I just knew it would take a while. They were definitely very fast but super exciting years. I’m just grateful that the Mariners gave me this opportunity.”
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