Over the last couple weeks, Cincinnati Reds manager Bryan Price has made it clear that the final month-plus of the season might as well be a rookie pitcher audition. If the Reds don’t know more about their 2018 rotation by the end of 2017, he said, the team is in big trouble.

“You don’t want to start handing out jobs,” Price said, “but in some respect you do.”

Veteran Homer Bailey was always grandfathered into a rotation spot next year, despite his struggles returning from a series of elbow surgeries. But after watching 24-year-old right-hander Luis Castillo strike out nine and allow just one run in seven innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Saturday, Price stated what’s become increasingly obvious.

Castillo has a big-league starting job for next year.

“Sometimes a young player will come up here and look in the major-league mirror, and it’ll shine back that there are some things they need to clean up to their game,” Price said. “Then they go back to the minor leagues and clean it up.

“In his case, he’s not only pitched really well in our system in Double-A, but he’s continued to pitch well and get better during his time in the big leagues. For me, he’s a guy that’s in our rotation.”

When that vote of confidence was relayed to the young righty after Saturday’s 1-0 loss to Pittsburgh, Castillo seemed unsurprised. After all, he owns a 3.26 ERA through 13 big-league starts, and has never allowed more than four runs in any outing. He’s turned in a quality start more than half the time.

With only a few starts left before he hits an innings limit, there’s little Castillo could do to make Price change his evaluation. Instead, the right-hander focuses on what he needs to do in order to succeed over the course of a full big-league season – improve his slider. He picked up the pitch in spring training and on Saturday threw 29 times, getting five whiffs and four called strikes in the process.

“I know I’m going to start next year, I’m going to be in the rotation for next year,” he said via interpreter Julio Morillo. “Now it’s on me to work as hard as I can work to get that slider better.”

When that final start will come is not known. Castillo has pitched 157 2/3 innings this year between the majors and minors, topping his previous career high of 131 2/3 from last year. The Reds have said they’d like him to eclipse that previous mark by 30-35 innings, which would give him one or two more outings.

Whenever it comes means nothing to Castillo. It doesn’t matter to him whether he knows ahead of time when he’ll make his last start, or if the team tells him after he takes the mound for the final time this year.

Perhaps that’s the peace of mind gifted to a player who knows where he’ll be pitching next year.

“It’s all mental,” he said. “I don’t really care when they tell me.”