Mariners Fire Manager Scott Servais In Midst Of A Midseason Collapse

SEATTLE — With rising rumours that a managerial change was imminent, Scott Servais learnt he would no longer be in control of the Seattle Mariners from a news alert flashing across a television screen, not from his supervisors.

The Mariners made a clumsy mistake Thursday. Just another error in two months in which the club crumbled, slipping from appearing on track for a division title to sitting on the verge of playoff contention in the American League.

Mariners Fire Manager Scott Servais In Midst Of A Midseason Collapse

“In what has been one of my least favourite days in my professional life, the worst part was the fact that Scott and (hitting coach Jarret DeHart) found out about this over the crawl of a news channel,” Mariners executive vice president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said. “That, it crushes me and I know it hurts them a great deal.”

Servais was fired in the middle of his eighth season as Mariners manager, but only after the team wasted a 10-game lead in the AL West and is now playing catch-up with only five weeks remaining in the regular season.

Former Seattle catcher Dan Wilson was named to replace Servais, the second manager to be fired this season, following Pedro Grifol of the Chicago White Sox. Wilson will be the manager in the future, not an interim manager for the remainder of the season.

“It has been a very difficult two-month stretch, a particularly tough 10 days, but trying to do what we can do with a team that is telling us we need to do something a little different than what we have,” Dipoto explained.

The decision to part ways with the 57-year-old Servais came during a catastrophic 1-8 road trip that put the Mariners to 64-64 after 13 games over 500 in mid-June.

On Thursday, the Mariners were five games behind Houston in the AL West and 7 1/2 games down in the wild-card rankings. However, nothing about Seattle’s play since leading the division by ten games on June 18 has given hope for a turnaround in the last five weeks of the regular season.

“Where we were in the middle of June and where we are today, it’s hard to believe actually how quickly it all dissolved for us and the way our team has played,” says Dipoto.

Servais joined Seattle before the 2016 season alongside Dipoto. Servais was 680-642 during his stint in Seattle, which included a massive reconstruction midway through his tenure that ultimately made the Mariners competitive — but not great. He was the second-longest-tenured manager in franchise history, trailing only Lou Piniella.

Servais issued a statement late Thursday, thanking players, ownership, and fans for his time with the Mariners.

“The city of Seattle welcomed my family and me, and we will be eternally thankful for your support. As this chapter comes to a conclusion, I leave feeling proud of what we’ve accomplished together and excited about what the future holds,” Servais added.

This season, the Mariners have struggled with a shortage of offense, which has been especially frustrating given that Seattle’s pitching staff has been statistically the best in baseball for most of the season.

Seattle’s pitching staff leads MLB in ERA, WHIP, and batting average against. Meanwhile, the Mariners rank 30th in hitting average, 29th in slugging, and have the league’s most strikeouts. Seattle has scored two runs or less 48 times in 128 games this season, going 6–42 in those games.

But the stretch of play since mid-June is what prompted the managerial change. On June 19, the Mariners were 44-31 and led the division by ten games. However, the Mariners have gone 20-33 since then, including a 7-15 record versus Detroit, Pittsburgh, Miami, and the Los Angeles Angels, all of which are below 500. Seattle’s trade deadline signings of Randy Arozarena and Justin Turner have not given the expected offensive spark, and injuries to Julio Rodríguez and J.P. Crawford have reduced expectations of turning around the skid.

Mariners Fire Manager Scott Servais In Midst Of A Midseason Collapse

The 55-year-old Wilson, whose first game in charge will be Friday night when the Mariners begin a series against the San Francisco Giants, has served in various capacities for the organization, including fill-in manager for the team’s Triple-A affiliate and analyst on the team’s television broadcasts. He has been the team’s special assistant for player development for the past seven years.

Wilson is the 21st manager in team history and the 18th full-time manager.

“We can’t know a person better than we know Dan Wilson, and I believe in both his baseball and who he is as a person,” Dipoto told reporters. “I think that will resonate very well with our players.”

Servais will be remembered in Seattle as the manager who helped the Mariners end baseball’s longest playoff drought by earning a wild-card spot in 2022. Servais was the party’s captain the night Seattle won, and the Mariners defeated Toronto in the wild-card series before falling to Houston in the ALDS.

Seattle was Servais’s first management job. He had worked in the front office for Texas and the Angels before joining the Mariners in the dugout.

SOURCE | AP