As a general custom, in-season meetings for baseball teams are like introducing porridge onto a sagging Italian restaurant menu. Nobody thinks it’s going to help anything.
Nevertheless, after six losses in a row to the Tigers and Padres, Mariners manager Scott Servais decided to bring out the ladle in San Diego post-game. Since then, they won six of the next seven games, including 4-2 Sunday (box) at T-ball Park to complete a four-game sweep of the Texas Rangers.
Cause and effect? Nobody can know.
What is knowable is that, with the season one-third complete, the Mariners are 27-27 despite leading the American League in only one major category: Most injuries (15 on the IL entering Sunday).
Well, make that two categories: Also, most players used — 46, which leads all of MLB. Kinda the same point: The Mariners are somehow afloat despite treading in sludge.
“There comes three four times throughout the course of the season that you do need to kind of circle the wagons a little bit,” Servais said, “and making sure everybody’s on board for what we were about to to go into.”
The Mariners were headed into AL West-leading Oakland for three. They won two. They came home for four against Texas, and won ’em all.
Servais said there was no high volume hectoring after the Padres sweep.
“The only time to get loud for me is when you don’t see the effort level, or the concentration, the work, the focus,” he said. “That’s never been an issue with this team. If it is, then we’ll get loud. I don’t expect it will be there with these guys.
“There’s a place in time for that. That wasn’t the place or time. We turned it around, and not because anybody tried to do too much. I talked about it all season long — just do your job, focus on getting one percent, two percent better. That’s it.”
Do your job.
Straight from the playbook of Bill Belichick.
It should be noted that the Rangers, who, like the Mariners, have been no-hit twice this season, are also amid a step-back strategy, and were widely predicted to finish last in the AL West. At 22-33, they have hit that mark. They have also lost 12 in a row at T-ball Park, the second-longest opponent streak in Seattle since the Baltimore Orioles lost 15 in a row from June 1999 to May 2002.
At least a part of the debacle in San Diego — which included a ghastly 16-1 loss — was due to an episode of COVID-19 infections in the bullpen.
“Obviously, we had a lot going on in San Diego, with the covid situation,” Servais said. It lingers still, with successful relievers Kendall Graveman and Drew Steckenrider apparently stuck in quarantine at the team’s San Diego hotel.
Will Vest returned to the roster Sunday. He hasn’t pitched since May 19, and all the un-vaxxed pitchers have lost conditioning that will have to be regained. More bad injury news came Sunday — reliever Erik Swanson will be out for an extended period with a strained groin muscle.
Nevertheless, the workaround for the damage in the pen has been effective: Substantial starting pitching.
In the seven games since the frying by the Friars, the Mariners have allowed 17 runs.
LHP Yusei Kikuchi has been a primary perpetrator, holding the Rangers hitless for five innings Sunday, finishing in 6.2 innings giving up three hits, both runs (on a Joey Gallo home run), no walks and five strikeouts. His previous start at Oakland offered the A’s one run on four hits through six innings.
It was his sixth quality start (six innings, three earned runs or fewer) in a row and eighth in his 10 starts of 2021. His ERA of 3.88 is best among Mariners starters, partly because James Paxton and Marco Gonzales have been injured — Gonzales, out since April 27, returns to start Tuesday against Oakland — and partly because Kikuchi is giving the impression of a No. 1 starter.
Particularly with a fastball that topped at 99 mph.
“I thought his intensity level and competitive level was as good as we’ve seen it,” Servais said. “The intent today with the stuff is probably as good as we’ve ever seen it.
“I don’t know if you can hear it in the press box, but we can hear it on the field. He is grunting. And when he does that, he quits thinking and the ball jumps out of his hand. It’s electric.”
Meanwhile, the woebegone Mariners offense is only slightly better these days — Sunday 1B Ty France drove in three runs on a double and single, 3B Kyle Seager had a solo homer — and remains last in MLB with with a team batting average of .205 and OPS of .644.
Longtime fans have gotten used to something of a Memorial Day weekend tradition — the exit of the Mariners from baseball relevance (you may have forgotten, since there was no baseball last May).
Sometimes they linger until the Fourth of July, and rarely, until Labor Day. Only four times in 43 years have they played into October. In 2021, they have reached the first holiday milestone as an average team despite playing at times with half a major-league roster.
There’s no way to know if any of this headiness is sustainable.
But if the formerly erratic Kikuchi has arrived in the vicinity of ace-hood, the opportunity looms for him, Gonzales and fellow starters Justin Dunn, Justus Sheffield and Chris Flexen to take the team lead in executing on the directive from Servais via Belichick.
Do your job. With a grunt.
27 Comments
Good string of wins against a really bad team at T-Ball park is a good start. You have to beat the bad teams and the M’s accomplished that. Beating the good teams is where the rubber hits the road. Hopefully once they can get players back from the IL and the anti-vaxx idiots back they can start to play some consistent competitive ball. Just curious, where is Evan White? I swore I seen his picture on a milk carton and a Mariner Blue Alert reader board on the freeway the other day.
White has a hip flexor strain and has been out awhile. Servais reported he’s taking grounders but hasn’t resumed running. It’ll be awhile, but France is raking since he returned from his injuries.
Give White 150-200 AB’s in Tacoma and then call him up late in the season.
Maybe, but the club invested big in him before he had an MLB AB. He may go for a rehab stint, but the M’s would have to show some humility to keep him there.
Raking at .250 BA? I guess that means if I rake my lawn and miss three-quarters of the leaves I should still feel like I ‘raked’. But, yes, it’s baseball. Hardest thing to do in sport, see the ball, hit the ball. France is still the second best average on the team. We’ll see who develops with the stick. The starters seem to have fallen in line. More is needed from Seager and Lewis. Joint Base Lewis/Seager/Haniger. Move out, men!
Since his return, he was hitting .357 before Monday’s game. Must pay attention.
I doubted the M’s would see .500 again. After the Padres shellacking, I felt they were falling like an anvil into the abyss. There are four more months to play, and the team will look much different (Dipoto can’t help himself) in September than it does today. I’ll say this– Scott Servais is the franchise’s second best manager. He has not been given a roster to contend with, but makes the most of what he has. He’s a quiet and thoughtful leader, but with steel in his spine. The M’s have indeed “trudged” on without Paxton, Marco, half a bullpen and no production from catcher, first and second. Their highly anticipated and vaunted pitcher and hitter have thus far flopped and flailed at the MLB level. It helps to have France back. Kikuchi has been a mystery since he arrived. One inning he looks like Sandy Koufax, and the next he looks like Sandy Duncan. I do love his finishing leg kick. Sometimes, as I await the M’s first hit, my mind drifts to Mariner fantasy-world, with Theo Epstein as President and GM.
Servais does deserve credit for managing through this injury/covid mess, as well as the org’s decision not to pay in free agency for a mid-career vet that would make this season more competitive.
Kelenic and Gilbert have yet to handle the bigs upon first call-up, which is the case probably 80% of the time with MLB rookies. However, four months remain.
The M’s have a winning record after two months. Gilbert was good today, and deserved to get a win.
Gilbert is facing for the first time in his career batters who were not overwhelmed by him. He responded well Monday, for the first time.
…the frying by the Friars. Simply brilliant, and worthy of the smile and unanticipated laugh it elicited.
Glad you enjoyed.
credit where credit is due: the M’s arose unexpectedly off the mat and whacked the A’s and the Rangers. quite contrary to tradition, as Art noted. there’s a tiny glimmer of hope out there . . . at least I think that’s what it is. haven’t seen one for a while.
It also could be the lights of the police cruiser in your rear-view mirror.
I have an irrational belief that the Mariners will somehow reach the playoffs this year. This latest winning spurt reinforces that belief. Go figure.
I used to describe myself as the Mariner Optimist, until I too realized that I was irrational. However, I still fondly hold on to the memories of Seattle’s last baseball championships, by the Seattle Angels in 1966, champions of the Pacific Coast League; and the kids from Kirkland, Little League World Series champions of 1982.
That’s industrial-grade sentiment, not irrationality.
Every time I think I’m holding my own sparring with you, I am reminded that I am Jimmy Ellis and you are Ali.
“Round one ya done; round two ya through; round three it’s all over but me; round four ya out the door; round five, more dead than alive . . . “
Good that you are able to self-diagnose your psychological state. It will serve you well in life beyond ball.
Have to admit that after the Tigers and Padres series I didn’t think they would see .500 again this season. If we can take one more from Oakland than go on the road and take each series will be in mid-June looking pretty good. Angels still won’t have Trout (thank goodness), Cleveland is beatable as we proved a couple weeks ago and it’s revenge time against the Tigers.
Just wish we would drop Kelenic down in the order a few days. Perhaps until he starts hitting .150.
It’s always fun to look ahead, but this season and the previous two are devoted to player development, not besting opponents. That’s the daily object, of course, which is why they might drop Kelenic, just to see how he responds. He’s getting a necessary dose of humility.
Maybe even Logan Gilbert.
I think Monday showed he’s learning well on the job.
The big question is whether Kelenic is being helped or harmed by his current encounter with Reality. Yes, he has an ego that would surely benefit from a smaller hat size. And, yes, Dipoto has made his point: Kelenic wasn’t being arbitrarily and undeservedly held back. But is the experience of batting .118 good for his overall development? The M’s don’t want to create another Dustin Ackley.