The Seattle Mariners said they needed a change of voice when they decided to fire Scott Servais during the team’s recent skid, but the ex-manager is saying the team never voiced that decision to him personally before he found out on his phone.
The Mariners made the decision on Thursday to fire Servais, as the Mariners lost eight of their last nine games after previously holding a massive AL West lead in June.
But, according to the Seattle Times, Servais found out about his fate on X, as he received a notification from The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal.
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The notification came less than 90 minutes before Servais had a meeting with Jerry Dipoto, the Mariners’ president of baseball operations.
“That was one of the toughest things, obviously, learning that from an alert on my phone,” Servais told the Seattle Times. “It was just the reality of what may be coming down here in the next few hours. When you’re part of an organization for nine years, it feels like family. And it was alarming that I found out that way, but it happened. I can’t say it didn’t happen. It absolutely happened that way.”
Rosenthal even mentioned on “Foul Territory” that it was “uncomfortable” that Servais had to learn of his fate from one of his reports.
MARINERS EXPLAIN REASONING BEHIND FIRING MANAGER SCOTT SERVAIS: ‘NEEDED A NEW VOICE’
Dipoto, who relieved hitting coach Jarret DeHart of his duties along with Servais, regretted how the longtime manager found out.
“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 Jarret found out about this over the crawl of a news channel,” Dipoto told reporters on Thursday. “That, it crushes me, and I know it hurts them a great deal.”
When Servais was fired, the Mariners were 64-64 after getting swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers. Seattle is now 65-65 on the year, and they sit 4.5 games back for the AL West lead and 7.5 games back in the AL wild-card chase.
As of June 10, Seattle led the AL West by 10 games. However, they’ve gone 21-34 since, while the Houston Astros, a team that got off to a horrendous start, found themselves and have been climbing back ever since.
Servais knew his chances of a 10th season with the Mariners was in jeopardy if his squad didn’t reach the postseason, but he wasn’t expecting the decision to come during the chase.
“I knew probably at the end of the year, if we didn’t get into the playoffs, whatever, that there would be kind of a reflection time on where the organization was at and where I fit moving forward,” Servais explained. “I just, my expectation was that I’d get a chance to finish out the year. Unfortunately, it just didn’t happen.”
“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,” Dipoto said via ESPN at the time of the firing.
“Collectively, we determined that our organization needed this. We needed to do something to create a different theme, a different vibe in our clubhouse. I’m not trying to throw Scott under a bus at all here. I can’t say enough positive things about the things he did in contributing here, but I do think we needed a new voice.”
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