Seattle, WA
BREAKING: Seattle Mariners Officially Name Edgar Martinez as Hitting Coach
![BREAKING: Seattle Mariners Officially Name Edgar Martinez as Hitting Coach BREAKING: Seattle Mariners Officially Name Edgar Martinez as Hitting Coach](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_4393,h_2471,x_0,y_0/c_fill,w_1440,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/inside_the_mariners/01j60d0nevs3d9rjt85r.jpg)
As was speculated upon on Thursday, the Seattle Mariners have brought franchise legend Edgar Martinez back into the fold as the team’s hitting coach.
They made the announcement official on Friday afternoon before game one of a series with the San Francisco Giants.
Major League Manager Dan Wilson announced today that Hall of Fame Designated Hitter Edgar Martinez will serve as our Major League Hitting Coach for the remainder of the 2024 season.
Major League Manager Dan Wilson announced today that Hall of Fame Designated Hitter Edgar Martinez will serve as our Major League Hitting Coach for the remainder of the 2024 season.
Read more: https://t.co/5pVzeYBl6J pic.twitter.com/BfPkMAeD7t — Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) August 23, 2024
Interestingly enough, the release says that Martinez will be in this capacity “for the remainder of the 2024 season.” That is different than Dan Wilson, who the M’s made it known is the team’s full-time manager with no interim tagged attached. The team fired manager Scott Servais and hitting coach Jared DeHart on Thursday.
“When Dan reached out to me, I told him that I’d be happy to assist him this season in whatever way I could,” Martinez said. “I know the talent and work ethic this group of hitters has and I hope I can be of help to them.”
Martinez is one of the most beloved figures in team history, having spent 18 years in Seattle. He played on five different playoff teams and made seven All-Star teams. Martinez was a five-time Silver Slugger and a two-time batting champion. He is a member of both the Mariners Hall of Fame and the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Martinez spent four years as the M’s hitting coach previously, from 2015-2018. He is now 61 years old.
The Mariners play the Giants on Friday night with first pitch coming at 7:10 p.m. PT. Luis Castillo is on the mound for Seattle.
NEW PODCAST IS OUT: The latest episode of the “Refuse to Lose” podcast is out as Brady Farkas talks about the Mariners firing Scott Servais, hiring Dan Wilson and Jerry Dipoto getting to stay on the job. Furthermore, we are joined by Ty Buttrey, who played most of this season at Triple-A Tacoma. He shares his opinion on Servais, the organization and the state of baseball as a whole in an enlightening conversation. CLICK HERE:
LONG OVERDUE? One former Mariner says the firing of Scott Servais should have happened earlier. CLICK HERE:
DAN is the MAN: Dan Wilson has been given the job, permanently? CLICK HERE:
Continue to follow our Inside the Mariners coverage on social media by liking us on Facebook and by following Teren Kowatsch and Brady Farkas on “X” @Teren_Kowatsch and @wdevradiobrady. You can subscribe to the “Refuse to Lose” podcast by clicking HERE:
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Seattle, WA
After being released by the Seattle Storm, Stanford great Kiana Williams looking for her next home
![After being released by the Seattle Storm, Stanford great Kiana Williams looking for her next home After being released by the Seattle Storm, Stanford great Kiana Williams looking for her next home](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_4489,h_2525,x_0,y_0/c_fill,w_1440,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/all_cardinal/01j5xwsxb37c6bk81akq.jpg)
Early in the decade, Kiana Williams established herself as an important figure at Stanford, helping the Cardinal win the 2021 NCAA Division I women’s basketball tournament en route to the school’s first women’s basketball title since 1992. Williams, along with players like Cameron Brink, Haley Jones and Lexie Hull formed a dominant roster that will forever go down in history as arguably one of Stanford’s best and most talented.
After Williams graduated following the title-winning season, she left as the school’s all-time leader in three pointers while cementing herself as a true Cardinal legend. Now, only three years after leaving college, Williams’ basketball career is in limbo after her recent release from the WNBA’s Seattle Storm.
Selected by the Seattle Storm with the 18th overall pick of the 2021 WNBA Draft, Williams was initially a longshot to make the roster as the team already had Sue Bird, Jordin Canada, Jewel Loyd and Kennedy Burke in their backcourt. Against the odds she made the final roster and proceeded to spend the following two seasons in Seattle, playing in 13 games between 2021 and 2022 where she averaged 1.7 points in the latter year. Released three games into the ‘22 campaign, Williams signed with Connecticut where she played the rest of the season with the Sun.
Williams did not play in the WNBA last year before once again rejoining the Storm on a training camp contract before this season. Her performance was good enough to earn her another spot on the initial roster, but after getting waived on July 2, she signed two 10-day contracts. Playing in 13 games with the team where she averaged only 0.8 points, she was not retained following the expiration of her second 10-day contract and was waived for a second time.
Never missing a game while in college with 128 consecutive starts, Williams ended her tenure averaging 13.4 points per game with 3.4 assists and 2.4 rebounds. With her being the program’s all-time three point leader, her career percentage from behind the arc was .370. One of Tara VanDerveer’s most reliable players during her time there, Williams’ legacy will never be forgotten.
Listed as a 5-foot-7 hybrid guard, Williams’ versatility as well as her strong shooting ability make her the type of player that any team could use, and as the WNBA playoffs approach, Williams will continue to grind in the hopes of either finding a home for a team’s playoff run, or come back better than ever next season, ready to help a franchise achieve its aspirations.
Seattle, WA
Seattle weather: Cooler, showers and chance of storms Friday
![Seattle weather: Cooler, showers and chance of storms Friday Seattle weather: Cooler, showers and chance of storms Friday](https://images.foxtv.com/c107833-mcdn.mp.lura.live/expiretime=2082787200/4abffed88ee92730fe62c70b59563c00258e2954cc1e7e20f2dc8e9f00ddff41/iupl/868/001/1280/720/868001C8A8CD4B0D617DD84DE5F12F8C.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
High temperatures again today were well below seasonal average, only peaking in the low 70s. We saw more clouds and scattered showers, even some rumbles of thunder.
Seattle, WA
Seattle Mariners fire longtime manager Scott Servais and hitting coach Jarret DeHart amid midseason skid
One day after being swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Seattle Mariners have fired longtime manager Scott Servais and has replaced him with former Mariners All-Star catcher Dan Wilson. Earlier on Thursday, The Athletic reported that Servais losing his job was imminent.
In a statement released Thursday, Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto confirmed that Servais will be replaced by Wilson. Wilson, a member of the Seattle Mariners Hall of Fame, has no previous management experience, but has been brought in by the Mariners as a special assignment coordinator for spring training for the past few years.
“We believe that we need a new voice in the clubhouse,” Dipoto said in the statement, praising Wilson as “a key member” of the organization. “He is well respected within and outside of the clubhouse, and we are confident he will do a great job in leading our group over the final six weeks of the season and moving forward.”
Per the statement, Wilson will manage his first game on Friday, as the Mariners hope to reverse a midseason collapse with a home series against the San Francisco Giants.
In the statement, Dipoto also thanked Servais for his nine years with the team. “He has poured his passion into the team and our community and I know I speak for the entire Mariners organization in thanking him for his hard work,” he said.
Servais, who has managed the Mariners since 2016, helped end the team’s postseason drought in 2022 but has been unable to reverse the tide on another mediocre season and a disastrous midseason slump in 2024. The Mariners, who at one point held a 10-game lead in their division, have since fallen to five games back of the Astros in the AL West.
The Mariners also fired hitting coach Jarret DeHart, who has been with the team since 2018 and who was promoted to the position in 2021.
Seattle started the season strong but has struggled in the past few weeks: The team is now well behind the Astros and has lost eight of its past 10 to fall to .500 with a 64-64 record.
Despite some incredibly strong performances on the mound from star pitchers such as Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller, George Kirby and Luis Castillo, Seattle has struggled immensely on offense. The Mariners lead the league in strikeouts with 1,308 and have recorded the fewest hits (903) and lowest batting average (.216) in the league.
The Mariners fired bench coach and offensive coordinator Brant Brown in May, but the initial improvement on offense quickly fell apart as Seattle’s lineup reverted back to struggling.
Seattle fans will still fondly remember Servais for his management in 2022, when he led the long-suffering Mariners to the postseason for the first time since 2001 — ending a 21-year playoff drought, the longest active drought in all of North American professional sports at the time. Seattle clinched a wild-card berth that year and advanced to the AL divisional series before getting swept by the Astros.
But Servais’ tenure was also filled with seasons that failed to meet expectations. In 2016, his first season with the team, Seattle fell just short of the postseason after an unexpected playoff push. The same thing happened in 2021, when the Mariners were in playoff contention until the final day, and in 2023, when Seattle finished one game out of a playoff berth.
With its lead suddenly lost, Seattle looks to be hurtling toward a similar fate this season. Given that the AL West is one of the weakest divisions in baseball, the Mariners would likely need to win the division to secure a playoff spot. But they sit five games back in the AL West and 7.5 games back of the final AL wild-card spot as of Thursday.
Seattle has not won a World Series in the team’s 47-year history, and it’s one of five teams in MLB that has failed to win a pennant. If the Mariners fall short yet again, it’s likely that Dipoto — who has already infuriated fans with comments implying that the team wasn’t aiming for a World Series — will be on the hot seat next.
The team will now reportedly turn to Wilson, who caught for Seattle from 1994 to 2005. Per The Seattle Times, Wilson has become a mentor and good luck charm for current Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh during his tenure as a special assignment coordinator.
Additionally, per Adam Jude of The Seattle Times, Mariners legend Edgar Martinez will join Wilson, his former teammate, on the coaching staff. Martinez, a seven-time All-Star who played with the Mariners from 1987 to 2004, served as the hitting coach in Seattle from 2015 to 2018 and has been a special advisor since then.
Hearing Edgar Martinez is expected to join old teammate Dan Wilson on the Mariners coaching staff for the rest of the season.
Martinez was the M’s hitting coach from 2015-18 and he’s been a special adviser for the club since.
— Adam Jude (@A_Jude) August 22, 2024
Seattle will look to these two former players to help the team navigate the final 34 games of the regular season.
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