Key to Mariners' success? Patient, pesky at-bats

This story was excerpted from Daniel Kramer's Mariners Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

NEW YORK -- Mariners manager Scott Servais has been publicly preaching it for weeks, and coaches behind the scenes have reiterated it as much. But hearing J.P. Crawford speak bluntly and urgently about offensive adjustments that he believes need to be made carried much more weight.

“We’re getting runners on, but we’re not getting the clutch hit to bring guys in,” Crawford said after Saturday’s 4-3 loss to the White Sox, when the Mariners squandered multiple opportunities to pull away. “If we want to be good, if we want to be better, we’ve got to start dialing in and getting those runs in by any means.”

Pressed further, Crawford said, “I think we just need to realize the pressure’s on the pitcher, not on the batter in the box. We’ve just got to wait for our pitch. Sometimes, we get a little too antsy up there and swing at some bad pitches and end up getting ourselves out.”

Crawford has been the outlier in clutch moments. According to Baseball-Reference, he has a .907 OPS in high-leverage moments compared to .733 in medium and .556 in low -- precisely the type of production a contending team would want to see from its leadoff hitter, but perhaps just as much, a veteran who’s taken on leadership.

Crawford’s slash line of .242/.329/.356 (.685 OPS) since permanently moving to leadoff on May 10 doesn’t jump off the page, but he’s consistently drawn respectful ire from opposing pitchers as one of the league’s more pesky at-bats.

The contact specialist has seen an MLB-best 4.78 pitches per at-bat over the past two weeks, the point at which Servais said he believes the Mariners began collectively putting together more competitive at-bats, beginning with a series in San Diego. As a team, the Mariners lead MLB with 4.23 pitches per at-bat in this stretch, compared to 3.91 before, which ranked tied for 12th. They were tied for fifth last year with 3.94.

Forcing pitchers to throw more does correlate to success but it’s not a guaranteed measure to see a massive uptick in production. Rather, it’s a more methodical tactic better seen in longer-term results.

“It's getting ready to get ready to hit every pitch,” Servais said. “But if you don't get your pitch that you're hunting for in the zone you're hunting for, take it. And then late in at-bats, there are going to be times you’ve got to foul off pitches to get the guy to throw more pitches till ultimately he makes a mistake.”

The frustration -- which Crawford echoed on Saturday -- has been that the approach has been seemingly sound on the whole, but it’s evaporated in big moments. Which is why Sunday’s rebound victory offered more encouraging signs, because all five runs were delivered with a process more emblematic of what Servais and the Mariners’ staff are preaching.

“You can't just like throw it all out the window, and say, 'Ah, forget that. It doesn't work,'” Servais said. “No, it works. You've just got to continue to stay with it. And you will. Over time, that process is a good process.”

Julio Rodríguez ripped a two-run, two-out double in a 1-0 count on a fastball at the bottom of the zone, into the right-center gap to break a scoreless tie in the third inning. On a day where the Mariners struck out 16 times against White Sox workhorse Lance Lynn, attempting to pull the ball into the bleachers -- a tactic he’s admittedly been guilty of -- probably would not have led to success.

Also in a 1-0 count but against reliever Reynaldo López, and after finally avoiding Lynn in the eighth, Jarred Kelenic punched a low-and-away fastball to the opposite field for a bases-clearing triple. For Kelenic, it was particularly positive given that he entered the day 7-for-41 in June.

Both moments were emblematic of young hitters making the pitcher come to them.

“I'm feeling good at the plate, and like I said, I'm trying to just simplify the approach, get something in the heart of the plate and get my A-swing off,” Kelenic said.

There’s recognition of the approach, now it’s a matter of consistent execution.

“I always think it's there with our group,” Servais said of player accountability. “Sometimes, it's more vocal where it gets outside the clubhouse, and that's perfectly fine. It's normal. There are some things over the last [two weeks] and I keep talking about that we're doing extremely well. And I don't want us to get away from that."