SEATTLE — With growing speculation that a managerial change could take place, Scott Servais learned he would no longer be the skipper of the Seattle Mariners from a news alert that flashed across a television screen — not from his bosses.
It was a clumsy misstep by the Mariners on Thursday. Just another error during a two-month span in which the club collapsed, falling from seemingly being on its way to a division title to sitting on the fringes of playoff contention in the American League.
“In what has been one of my least favorite days in my professional life, the worst part of it was the fact that Scott and (hitting coach Jarret DeHart, who was also fired) 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 let go in the midst of his ninth season in charge of the Mariners, but only after the team had squandered a 10-game lead in the AL West Division. Seattle now finds itself trying to play catch up with only five weeks left in the regular season.
The team tabbed former Seattle catcher Dan Wilson to take over for Servais, who was the second manager in Major League Baseball let go this season, following Pedro Grifol, who was fired by the Chicago White Sox on Aug. 8. Wilson is the manager moving forward, not an interim for the rest 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 said.
The decision to move on from the 57-year-old Servais 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 entered Thursday five games behind the first-place Houston Astros in the division and 7 1/2 games back in the AL wild-card standings. However, 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.
“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,” Dipoto said.
Servais arrived in Seattle before the 2016 season, brought on in lockstep with Dipoto. Servais was 680-642 during his time with the Mariners, going through a significant rebuild midway through his tenure that ultimately made them competitive — but not good enough. He was the second-longest tenured manager in franchise history, behind only Lou Piniella.
Servais released a statement late Thursday via the team thanking players, ownership and fans for his time with the Mariners.
“To the city of Seattle, you embraced my family and me and we are forever grateful for your support. As this chapter closes, I leave with pride in what we’ve accomplished together and excitement for what the future holds,” Servais said.
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 MLB’s best most of the season.
Seattle’s pitching ranks first in baseball in ERA, walks plus hits per inning pitched and batting average against. Meanwhile, the Mariners are 30th in batting average, 29th in slugging percentage and have the most strikeouts in the AL. Seattle has scored two runs or less 48 times in 128 games this season and is 6-42 in those games.
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 they have gone 20-33 since, including a 7-15 mark against the Detroit Tigers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Miami Marlins and Los Angeles Angels — all sub-.500 teams. 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 dimmed the hopes of turning around the slide.
The 55-year-old Wilson, whose first game as manager will be Friday night when the Mariners open a series against the San Francisco Giants, has worked in a 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. For the past seven years, he has held the title of special assistant for player development within the team’s baseball operations.
Wilson is the 21st manager in franchise 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 said. “I think that will resonate very well with our players.”
Servais will forever be regarded in Seattle as the manager who helped end the longest playoff drought in the majors 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 the Toronto Blue Jays in their AL wild-card matchup before losing to Houston in an AL Division Series
Seattle was the first managerial job for Servais, who worked in the front office for the Texas Rangers and the Angels before moving to the dugout with the Mariners. That followed a 10-year career in the majors as a catcher for four franchises from 1991 to 2001.