Servais vows Mariners will stay aggressive on the bases
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, August 9, 2017
By Bob Dutton
The News Tribune
The Mariners believe the solution to their season-long baserunning blues is to double down and go full throttle.
“We’ve got to be aggressive,” manager Scott Servais insisted after Tuesday’s 7-6 victory at Oakland. “All of our guys. When you have a chance to make a play, go for it. If they respond, if they make a play and throw you out, then so be it.”
The approach worked Tuesday when Ben Gamel charged home from third base in the eighth inning on Danny Valencia’s one-out fly ball to short center field.
The throw from Oakland’s Rajai Davis made for a close play at the plate, but Gamel eluded around the tag by catcher Dustin Garneau and scored the tying run.
The Mariners subsequently won the game in the 10th inning on Leonys Martin’s two-out homer. That sent them into Wednesday’s series finale tied with with Tampa Bay and Kansas City for the American League’s final wild-card spot.
The aggressive approach hasn’t worked well for most of the season because of too many poor baserunning decisions. When Servais speaks of staying aggressive, he means aggressive and smart.
The Mariners continue to rank last among AL clubs in www.Fangraphs.com’s all-inclusive baserunning metric (BsR) at minus-16.5 runs on the bases.
Jarrod Dyson is all that is keeping them ahead of the New York Mets (minus-19.7) for absolute bottom. Dyson leads the league and ranks second in the majors at plus-7.0 runs. Cincinnati outfielder Billy Hamilton is plus-7.8 runs.
Gamel is the Mariners’ second-best baserunner at plus-2.3.
The baserunning problems recently prompted Servais to add a new element to the Mariners’ daily pre-game hitting meetings, a video-review session that he calls “the good, the bad and the ugly.”
The latter two segments often involve baserunning.
“You can only go out and practice baserunning so much,” Servais said. “I think this helps a little bit in keeping guys in tune to it. Guys are noticing it on the bench. Guys are making comments.”
Perhaps peer pressure can eliminate mistakes.
“We’re going to stay aggressive,” Servais vowed. “That’s what we have to do.”
