Remember When Mariners Fans Hated Scott Servais?

Sometimes, I find a lot of joy by reading Twitter and Facebook comments about the Seattle Mariners. Not to say that people’s comments aren’t valid, but it’s interesting to look at the way fans view things. For a while, manager Scott Servais was the talk of the town and if I remember correctly, people were wanting him fired.

Then, of course, the Mariners started winning and fans calmed the crap down. And at the beginning of November, Scott Servais was named a finalist for AL Manager of the Year, and finished second behind the Rays manager, Kevin Cash. I don’t want to say “I told you so,” but I really do.

The criticisms that Scott Servais received from Mariners fans mid-season

Instead of linking directly to people’s tweets, I decided to copy and paste for privacy reasons. As you could imagine, there was a lot of turmoil after being no-hit by Spencer Turnbull of the Tigers on May 18th.

"May 18th: Fire Scott Servais and replace him with(Baseball Reference screenshot of Scott Service)"

"May 18th: Fire Scott Servais!! What the f&$k are you guys waiting for? Another no hitter or another losing season? If I were as good at my job as Scott is at his, I wouldn’t have money to go watch you guys lose again!! #SeaUsRise dogs$!t!!"

There was also this tweet on May 11th after losing to the Dodgers, which I found very interesting.

"May 11th: I had the feeling they were going to f&$k this up. Am I supposed to be shocked about it? This team’s too predictable. They are who they REALLY are. Now fire Scott Servais & Jerry Dipoto while you sit in the goddamn corner & think about what you’ve done to yourselves for 20 years."

Then a little later in the season, we got these:

"June 6th: Baseball post. Ok @Mariners, you’ve guys have talented teams for multiple years and were not able to do anything with them and a lot of them have gone off to great things with other teams. So now instead of getting ride of players can we now finally FIRE SCOTT SERVAIS! #Mariners"

"June 12th: Good thing we just activated our closer Kendall Graveman today, could use him in this situation in the 9th. But wait we pitched him in the 8th inning for some reason. DFA montero and fire Scott Servais"

"August 27th: So glad Scott Servais took Dylan Moore out of the game since Fraley has done jack shit since coming in to pinch hit including being unable to lay down a goddamn bunt. And now misplaying a catch at the wall. Please fire Scott Servais and frankly ALL of the coaches. #KCvsSEA"

I also remember reading on Facebook that people didn’t like the relationship Scott Servais had with Jerry Dipoto. Because they were so close, fans thought it made it harder for Dipoto to fire Servais.

What do I think of all of these comments about Scott Servais?

It just makes me laugh, to be honest. The Mariners were a young team, so of course, there were going to be ups and downs this season. And of course, fans wanted to blame the manager who has little control of how a player performs. Now, all I see are comments about how Scott Servais should have won AL Manager of the Year instead of Kevin Cash.

The Seattle Mariners are in a good spot right now and are in good hands under Scott Servais, who has built great relationships with the core young players on the team. “Trust the process” is the perfect line for the Mariners, but many fans didn’t have that patience this year.