Despite Mariners’ struggles, Dan Wilson deserves more time as manager | Commentary

It was an act of humility, not a confession, but there are likely a lot of Mariners fans who would agree with the skipper’s response.

Mariners manager Dan Wilson is in his third season at the helm of the club, and while Season 1 was abbreviated, he’s less than two months from being a full two years on the job.

So on Monday I threw out a broad one: What have you learned in your time as manager? Strengths? Things you can do better?

Answered Wilson: “Well, there’s a lot of things I can do better. We don’t have enough time.”

Again, this was self-deprecation, not self-loathing. The rest of his reply was a boilerplate “it takes a village” nod to organizational support.

Perhaps it does. But in his team’s descent into sub-.500 territory, some angry villagers have emerged. We call them Mariners fans — and they seem to be shining the spotlight on Dan in the least-flattering fashion.

On Sunday in Cleveland, the Mariners blew a three-run lead when the Guardians scored five runs in the eighth inning en route to a 6-5 win. The loss dropped the M’s out of first place in the mind-blowingly mediocre American League West.

But the story wasn’t so much that the Mariners gave away a “W” so much as it was how they did it and who made the decisions. Enter Wilson.

With Seattle holding a 4-1 lead in the sixth, Dan decided to pull starting pitcher Emerson Hancock with two outs and catcher Cooper Ingle on first base. Yes, Hancock had thrown 98 pitches, and yes, he had just issued a walk. But if Emerson could have gotten pinch-hitter Daniel Schneemann out, he’d have completed a clean sixth and handed the ball over to three high-leverage relievers.

Instead, Wilson pulled Hancock and brought in Eduard Bazardo, who gave up a double before striking out Patrick Bailey to keep the three-run lead intact. And though Bazardo had thrown just 10 pitches, Wilson elected to start the seventh with Gabe Speier, who allowed two hits and no runs.

Most of you know what happened next. With Jose A. Ferrer unavailable, Wilson reached into his limited bullpen for the eighth inning and plucked Michael Rucker, who’d pitched six MLB innings since 2023. He gave up four runs to the Guardians and recorded one out. Then Wilson called on Josh Simpson, who’d thrown 2 1/3 big-league innings in 2026 before surrendering another run to Cleveland.

So the Mariners lost without closer Andrés Muñoz taking the mound. As you might imagine, Wilson faced scrutiny after the game … and it wasn’t the first time.

Earlier this season — in the first “piggyback” game involving starters Bryce Miller and Luis Castillo — Wilson had Castillo start the ninth inning with a 1-0 lead instead of giving the ball to Muñoz. The result was Castillo walking and hitting a batter in an eventual 2-1 loss to the White Sox.

There have been a number of games in which he has had Rob Refsnyder — who’s hitting .133 this season — lead off. He has pinch-hit for Dominic Canzone and Luke Raley midway through games, leaving them unavailable for the final innings. It doesn’t seem he communicated the piggyback plan well to Castillo — who slammed his glove on the dugout bench after being pulled after four scoreless innings a few weeks back.

And then there was Game 7 in last year’s ALCS, when he brought in Bazardo instead of Muñoz to finish the seventh with two runners on — only for Blue Jays leadoff man George Springer to blast a three-run homer that sent Toronto to the World Series.

While talking to former Seattle Times columnist Larry Stone on Monday, I repeated the old line that “nobody reports on the plane that lands safely.” And though he reminded me that everyone reported that Sully Sullenberger landed his plane in the Hudson River, he largely agreed.

It’s easy to pick on the manager — who’s regularly weighing risks and rewards — after a decision leads to a loss. But skippers rarely get credit for decisions that lead to wins — and Wilson has won a lot.

Entering Monday’s game vs. the Angels, the former Mariners catcher had a .544 regular-season winning percentage as Seattle’s manager. The beloved Lou Piniella, who had a 116-win season in the Emerald City, had a .542 winning percentage as the Mariners manager. Dan also took the Mariners closer to the World Series than they’ve ever been.

This isn’t to say Wilson should escape criticism. This is a team that many picked to go to the World Series this year, and it is vastly underperforming. But Dan isn’t the reason Cal Raleigh isn’t hitting. He isn’t the reason Bryan Woo and Castillo have struggled. He’s not why Julio Rodríguez is hitting below his career averages, or why Josh Naylor has a WAR of -0.3, or why the M’s have been plagued by injuries all season long.

Wilson has made more than a few questionable calls. And Monday, he said there wasn’t enough time to list all the ways he could get better.

He has, however, earned the time to prove that he can.