This story was excerpted from Daniel Kramer’s Mariners Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

SEATTLE -- Ty Adcock’s journey to Seattle to make his MLB debut on Monday was a fitting final hurdle to the nearly four years it has taken him to reach this point.

The Mariners’ 26-year-old prospect weathered a layover at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport for nearly three hours after making his connecting flight from Tulsa, Okla., where he was with Double-A Arkansas, then he arrived at T-Mobile Park just two hours before first pitch.

And before he could truly introduce himself to Scott Servais upon arriving, the Mariners manager informed Adcock that he’d likely be pitching in that night’s game against Miami.

“I was ready to go, then I went over to the bullpen just to touch the slope a little bit and make sure I had everything ready,” Adcock said. “Everything was feeling good out of the hand. And then from then on, I was just trying to kind of calm myself down a little bit because everything had been so sped up the past day or so. But yeah, I knew I was probably going to be in there if we were in a good situation.”

Indeed, Adcock twirled two hitless innings on the heels of a rebounding performance from Bryce Miller as part of an 8-1 win. Five of his six outs were generated on the ground, perhaps a preview of what he could offer with a fastball-slider combo.

Adcock is the latest in a long list of under-the-radar names to join the Mariners’ bullpen in recent years with the platform to prove himself. Yet his path here has been among the more unique -- and inspiring.

A two-way player at Elon University, where he was a catcher and the team’s closer, Adcock was drafted in the eighth round in 2019 as a pitcher -- and he was heavily targeted in large part due to the Mariners’ scouting of George Kirby, who the club selected out of Elon with its first-round pick. Adcock homered 12 times that year but it was clear that his future was on the mound, with nine saves and just nine earned runs in 21 outings.

But it was late in that senior season in which he began to experience discomfort in his pitching shoulder, which was later diagnosed as an impingement. Then in 2020, just as he was feeling reinvigorated, the Minor League season was canceled, impacting the development of countless prospects. He returned in Spring Training 2021 only to tear his UCL after his first outing, which required Tommy John surgery.

So, after 1,170 long days from the day he was drafted, he didn’t make his pro debut until August of 2022.

“I credit everything, all my stillness on the mound, just calm and collected, to all of the days spent in Arizona and with the mental skills team, just kind of preparing myself for these uncomfortable situations,” Adcock said. “And while I was in rehab with TJ, over a year I've read a ton of books on psychology, just trying to prepare myself and put myself in good situations so that when I do get into an uncomfortable situation or something that feels all foreign, that I know that I have a strategy to kind of calm myself.”

Adcock entered ‘23 with a good chance to rise quickly, especially based on his stuff. He began the year at High-A Everett, in large part due to roster construction that made him the odd man out at Arkansas.

“I just put my head down and tried to take it day by day,” Adcock said. “The big thing they're big on is just embrace your grass. Like, wherever you're at, it doesn't matter. Just compete.”

As for his debut, the funny part was that his wife and most of his family had arrived from North Carolina earlier in the afternoon and were touring Seattle well before the right-hander landed. It was a fitting full-circle moment.