Scott Servais expects big things from Mariners: ‘Now is our time’
Jan 24, 2017, 1:38 PM | Updated: 4:02 pm
Mariners manager Scott Servais on Tuesday: "Now is the time for us to take the next step." (AP)
(AP)
If you need a good baseball fix before spring training, this week is the time to get it. On Wednesday, the Hutch Award Luncheon will be held on the field at Safeco Field. On Thursday, the Mariners will hold their annual pre-spring training press conference, where a number of team officials will speak. And FanFest takes place this weekend.
On Tuesday, however, we got a little preview of some of the things we could hear Thursday when Scott Servais stopped by the 710 ESPN Seattle studio for a visit with “Brock and Salk.”
It was a very different conversation from what we heard last year. No get-to-know-yous required. No philosophies needed to be defined. To a large extent, the same can be said about the team. There are new additions, but the core and majority have a year together under their belt, and with fewer questions about what is going on around them, it perhaps can be easier to focus on the ultimate goal.
“Guys have different things to prove,” Servais said. “They are all at different points of their career. Our leadership group, our veteran core, I think they have really got to the stage of their career where it is time to win. I know Robbie (Robinson Cano) feels that way, even Jean Segura is now where he’s got four, five years in the big leagues, he’s been to an All-Star Game, (but) he hasn’t won. That’s the thing I am talking about. It’s time. Now is our time.”
Servais believes that with the additions general manager Jerry Dipoto has made this offseason, the team on paper is improved. He also believes the experience gained from those who were here in 2016 could be a factor in success in 2017.
“It really hurt our players to lose last year. Everybody thought we were going to get to the playoffs,” he said. “Sometimes there is not a carryover from year to year. With this team, with our core, I really believe it will be there will be a carryover.”
That could start with Felix Hernandez, who Servais said had a better understanding of why he struggled last year and whose state of mind in his workouts was described to him by his trainer in one word: “Angry.”
It will take more than an improved Felix to get the team into October however.
“Now is the time for us to take the next step,” Servais said. “I will say our division is very competitive, everyone else in our division has gotten better as well. Any team in our division could win the division. What will separate it? That’s kind of the stuff that sometimes goes on outside the lines. Bringing the group together and getting guys to believe in each other, we will spend a lot of time in spring training focusing on that as well.”
