Relax, Defenders fans, Adam Piechowski hasn’t changed addresses — just his pitching duties on the team. Beginning Friday night,  the longtime reliever is now a starting pitcher. For now anyway.

Piechowski, who was lights out through much of the first half of the season as a setup man but has struggled a bit in the second half (now 2-2, 3.33) will take the mound Friday at Sussex for his first professional start. It’s something team president Dan Duquette has mentioned as a possibility in the past.

“I said ‘Dan, I don’t know if he can do it, he’s beena reliever for a long time,’” Daubach said. “He’s one of our better pitchers,and when we’re losing a lot of games, you don’t get the value of Piechowski and (closer Juan) Padilla at the end of games. So why not start him?”

Daubach said he went to Piechowski about the idea recently but “he wasn’t wild about it.” But, he said, after a couple of bad outings — he gave up a three-run triple to Worcester’s Lucas Taylor in a 4-3 loss on Monday — he relented.

“He’s willing to do it, so we’re going to give him a shot,” Daubach said.

“It should be a good time, I’m going to give it a shot,” Piechowski said. “I think it was more of a mutual thing. We haven’t had the same starting rotation all year…We’ll see what happens.”

Piechowski said he uses a fastball and slider in relief, “but as a starter you’re going to see the lineup a few times. I’ll probably throw some changeups and mix it up a bit.”

That’s been Duquette’s point all along.

“He has three pitches,” Duquette said. “And he’ll have a chance to use all his pitches. Plus he’ll benefit from the mound time.”

Nick Asselin (6-6, 4.37) pitches Saturday and another reliever-turned-starter, lefty Rob Riley (1-0, 5.83) pitches on Sunday.

—- TOM KING