Mariners fire manager Scott Servais in midst of a midseason collapse
Tim Booth, AP Sports Writer
SEATTLE (AP) — The Seattle Mariners fired manager Scott Servais on Thursday with the team in the midst a two-month collapse that included squandering a 10-game lead in the division and slipped to the fringes of playoff contention in the American League.
The team tabbed former Seattle catcher Dan Wilson to take over for Servais.
“We believe that we need a new voice in the clubhouse,” Mariners executive vice president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said. “Dan knows our team and has been a key member of our organization working with players at every level over the past 11 years."
The decision to move on from Servais during his ninth season in charge came on the heels of a disastrous 1-8 road trip that dropped the Mariners to 64-64 after being 13 games over .500 in mid-June.
The Mariners trail Houston by five games in the AL West and are 7 1/2 games back in the wild-card standings. But nothing in the way Seattle has played since leading the division by 10 games on June 18 has provided optimism that there will be a turnaround over the final five weeks of the regular season.
Servais arrived in Seattle before the 2016 season, brought on in lockstep with Dipoto. Servais was 680-642 during his time with Seattle, going through a significant rebuild midway through his tenure that ultimately made the Mariners competitive — but not good enough. He was the second-longest tenured manager in franchise history behind only Lou Piniella.
Hitting coach Jarret DeHart was also let go along with Servais.
This season, the Mariners have been hurt by a lack of offense that has been particularly painful considering Seattle’s pitching staff has been statistically the best in baseball most of the season.
Seattle’s pitching ranks first in baseball in ERA, WHIP and batting average against. Meanwhile, the Mariners are 30th in batting average, 29th in slugging and have the most strikeouts in the league. Seattle has scored two runs or less 48 times in 128 games this season and is 6-42 in those games.
But the stretch of play since mid-June is what ultimately led to the managerial change. The Mariners were sitting at 44-31 on June 19 with a 10-game lead in the division. But the Mariners have gone 20-33 since, including a 7-15 mark against Detroit, Pittsburgh, Miami and the Los Angeles Angels. The trade deadline additions of Randy Arozarena and Justin Turner have not provided the offensive spark Seattle anticipated, and injuries to Julio Rodríguez and J.P. Crawford have hampered the hopes of turning around the slide.
Wilson has worked in variety of roles for the organization, including as a fill-in manager for the team's Triple-A affiliate and analyst on the team’s television broadcasts.
Servais will forever be regarded in Seattle as the manager that helped end the longest playoff drought in baseball when the Mariners earned a wild-card berth in 2022. Servais was the leader of the party the night Seattle clinched, and the Mariners went on to beat Toronto in the wild-card series before losing to Houston in the ALDS.
Seattle was the first managerial job for Servais, who worked in the front office for Texas and the Angels before moving to the dugout with the Mariners.
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