M’s are firing Servais. Dan Wilson named interim.
I don’t really think Servais is the problem or that Wilson should be the interim, but whatever, it’s a different voice which might help in the short term. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Servais get another chance and succeed somewhere else.
They already fired the “offensive coordinator” earlier in the year, so manager is the next scapegoat for the players being unable to do the job they’re being paid to do. This team has been mostly the same for its entire existence – just swap out one mediocre team for another. Sometimes they have good pitching, sometimes good hitting, but never a complete team.
But nothing is really going to change without new ownership.
Exactly. Ownership refuses to, or is unable to, spend the amount of money needed to compete. Mariners fans were livid during free agency because it became very obvious/clear that the team wasn’t going to open the wallet up. Blame the RSNs tanking or what have you, but the constant refrain I read everywhere was for the ownership to sell the team to someone willing to spend.
They have been hurt by injuries and players who have not performed up to previous seasons.
But while their hitting sucks that is something you can point to with a lot of teams this year.
Another day in the life of Ohtani - he joins the 40-40 club by swiping his 40th bag, and then ending the game on a walk-off grand slam for his 40th homer. He’s also on pace for 50-50. He’s the only DH to win an MVP and he’s about to do it again in the other league, and he’s a pitcher.
But alas, he’s a Dodger now, so the biggest news of the night will have to be this guy catching three foul balls in the same inning.
To be fair, he’s in the park where you have the highest probability of intercepting a foul ball, but still
The Cubbies are finally back to a .500 record thanks in no small part to some fantastic hitting over the last month from Pete Crow-Armstrong, who is having the most exciting rookie season for a Cub I can remember since Bryant, and that’s batting at the end of the order. The other day he hit an inside the park home run simply by virtue of his ridiculous speed.
Whether it’s playing ball with the neighborhood kids, or diffusing potential road rage situations, Salvy’s a man of the people.
Danny Jansen becomes the first player in MLB history to play for both teams in the same game. He was at bat for Toronto when their game was suspended vs Boston, then he was traded to the Red Sox, and today was the resumption of that game, and he appeared in it, so he’ll be on both sides of the box score.
I’m kinda surprised that’s never happened before. There have been several instances of players getting traded to the other team in the middle of a doubleheader, and appearing for both teams, but those were different games.
Wow, Cubs came back from 3-10 to win 14-10. On the downside, it doesn’t look like Hendricks is going to get his mojo back at this point.
Reminds me of this old story (1982). Joel Youngblood picked up a pair of hits for two different teams on the same day, although they weren’t playing one another.
https://www.mlb.com/news/joel-youngblood-two-hits-for-two-teams
Imanaga throws seven innings of a combined no-hitter, hopefully the first of many. Sucks he wasn’t allowed to finish it, but still a great addition to his already remarkable season.
Mariners are firing Dipoto.
Oh no, Zaidi losing his bestest bud.
EDIT: Uh, what? You sure you got that right?
Ftfy5
lol of course they are. I’m sure they’ll get good in his second decade with the team!
I don’t think it matters who the head of baseball operations is as long as the owners are the same.
Ownership is obviously a problem, but there are plenty of teams with smaller payrolls that do much more with that money.
You have to spend money to win World Series. Since 1995 only 3 teams have won a world series with a payroll in the bottom half of the league at the start of the year. 2 of those teams made trades at the deadline that put them in the top half. Sure, you can make the playoffs but you’ll lose in a series against teams with higher payrolls and better players. This year the Mariners were #18 at the start of the year.
I don’t think Dipoto is perfect by any means and they obviously are great at developing pitching but struggle with hitting for some reason. However, I think he knew there were holes offensively on this team and did we he could to fill them in the offseason given the constraints he was under. Mitch Garver had an OPS+ of 139, 98, 138 in the past 3 seasons. Jorge Polanco was 125, 114, 115. Those 2 should have been a huge addition to this team barring injury concerns, they didn’t pan out. Julio has taken a step back this year. After a very strong 2023 JP Crawford has regressed. I don’t know if I can blame Dipoto for any of that and I’m not sure what I would have wanted him to do differently in the offseason given the constraints he was under other than sign Haniger which I wasn’t a fan of. Maybe there were trades that could have helped this team? However if you know ownership is going to keep you from spending money than those prospects are the only way you can potentially get high level multi-year talent.
To Win A World Series, Teams Almost Always Have To Spend (baseballamerica.com)