Win over Orioles exposed Dan Wilson to the consequence of Mariners rotation surplus

The Seattle Mariners survived a bullpen management nightmare to beat the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday. And this time, it wasn't even Dan Wilson's fault. He was using what he had, and the reality is that he has less to work with than most managers.

Alex Hoppe getting leverage work in the seventh inning? Jose A. Ferrer throwing 42 pitches in a two-run ninth inning? Nick Davila getting a save opportunity in the 10th inning after a red-eye flight delivered him to Baltimore less than 12 hours before first pitch?

Yeah, pure madness. And not the least bit optimal.

But this is your bullpen on seven relievers instead of the normal eight, and Andrés Muñoz, Matt Brash and Eduard Bazardo were unavailable after back-to-back outings. Moreover, Davila was only there because Cooper Criswell went on the IL earlier in the day.

If it's a question of what could go wrong while the Mariners are using all six of their starting pitchers in starting roles, what we saw on Tuesday isn't even the worst of it. There is, of course, an alternate scenario in which that game devolves into a loss — and it nearly did what felt like a dozen times just after the eighth inning.

The positive spin is that games like the one the Mariners played on Tuesday shouldn't be an everyday occurrence. But the threat of such games is realer than it is for teams with full bullpens. Even if three guys are unavailable, hey, that still leaves five functional arms instead of four.

Mariners still have an obvious way out of their starting pitching surplus

As for what comes next, Wilson can hold out hope that his bullpen will eventually get optimized.

As with Gabe Speier before him, Criswell hopefully won't be sidelined for long as he recovers from a shoulder strain. The return of Carlos Vargas is also still out there somewhere, even if updates on his lat strain have been few and far between since Opening Day. And, just sayin': a trade for a late-inning arm isn't a bad idea either.

But if we're going to talk trades, it speaks volumes that even the subliminal messaging coming from the Mariners front office isn't ruling out a deal of a starter. It'll almost certainly be Luis Castillo if it happens, and the fact that his stock is rising is undoubtedly a good thing for Seattle. The other option is to bring back the piggyback, but its success arguably wasn't worth the drama.

Trading a starter would be the Mariners defying the age-old wisdom that a team can never have enough starting pitchers. But given that there are only 26 spots on the roster, too much of a good thing means not enough of other good things at a certain point.

On Tuesday, the Mariners came too close to finding out how much that could cost. And if games must be lost, one would rather see Wilson misusing what he has rather than not having enough to use.

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