Former Mariners Manager Scott Servais Made MLB History for All the Wrong Reasons
Servais Became the Only Manager to Be Fired During the Season After Losing a Double-Digit Lead
Learns He is Fired from Crawl on Television
Managers and coaches know they are hired to be fired. When the pink slip comes, it is usually delivered personally, in a meeting, or via a phone call. In MLB news, the Seattle Mariners didn’t stick to tradition this week as Scott Servais learned his days as manager were over while watching TV.
You know, the dreaded news crawl.
“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) 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.”
Sources: Mariners expected to fire Scott Servais, name Dan Wilson manager. https://t.co/BDgsCPVpuc
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 22, 2024
Now, it is no shame for a writer to be beaten to a news item by Ken Rosenthal, one of the best baseball scribes of all time. Rosenthal breaks stories that are small, medium, and huge. He’s an insider to the max.
How Could This Happen?
However, it is unconscionable that someone in the Seattle organization leaked the decision to fire Servais after going 1-8 in MLB games on a road trip left Seattle at 64-64 to anyone before Servais was told. A team that once was thinking World Series, is desperate.
The Mariners are 7.5 games out of a Wild-Card spot. That paints a scenario where the only likely road to the playoffs would be to catch the Houston Astros, who are five games ahead of them in the AL West.
The Mariners currently have the lowest ERA (3.53) and lowest batting average (.216) among all AL/NL teams this season.
The last team to finish a season ranked as such were the 1937 Boston Bees. pic.twitter.com/YAvghHA8JA
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) August 23, 2024
Per MLB.com:
Servais departs at a time when Seattle still remains in the postseason race but with fleeting chances — a far cry from where the club stood entering play on June 19, with a 10-game lead atop the American League West. Since then, the Mariners have gone 20-33 for a .377 winning percentage which is MLB’s lowest other than the White Sox, who are on pace for one of the worst seasons in history.
Embarrassing isn’t the word for it. Unprofessional would be better.
“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. “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.”
Unwanted Territory
Servais exists in bad company, and we don’t mean as part of the old rock band. The Mariners were running away with the AL West early. They had a double-digit lead and that puts the former manager here:
Scott Servais is the first manager in MLB history to have a 10.0+ game lead in the division (or league, prior to 1969) but then be fired before the end of the season. pic.twitter.com/LBcgKoAAvh
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) August 23, 2024
There is a good reason for the collapse. Seattle itself is in bad company.
The Boston Bees? The way the Mariners handled Servais’ dismissal will be stinging to not only the former manager but the entire organization’s front office. Whether Dan Wilson or someone else becomes the long-term skipper, Seattle needs to fix the leaks in its house.