Robles quickly becoming the 'energy' Mariners need

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.

BOSTON -- They certainly didn’t know it when the transaction took place in early June, well before Tuesday’s 3 p.m. PT Trade Deadline. But the Mariners’ acquisition of Victor Robles might go down as one of their most impactful in-season moves of the year.

Filling in for Julio Rodríguez in center field as he nurses a high right ankle sprain, and slotting into the leadoff role while J.P. Crawford recovers from a fractured right pinkie finger, Robles is pulling double duty for a Mariners lineup that looks drastically different than just over a week ago.

And he’s done so with pleasantly surprising production.

“Setting the tone,” clubhouse leader Cal Raleigh said, “just the way he’s having at-bats. Even when he doesn’t get a hit, it’s encouraging. He’s stealing bases. He’s putting pressure on the defense. He’s the kind of jolt, energy we need.”

Robles is hitting a robust .357 with a .952 OPS since joining the team as a free agent, three days after being designated for assignment by the Nationals, with whom he’d spent his entire, eight-year career to that point. It’s a smaller sample, just 80 plate appearances, because when he first joined Seattle, it was as a bench bat and he played sparingly.

“I thought it would be more like a platoon partner,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “He would play against left-handed pitching, because I think that’s what he’s basically done the last few years of his career when he got here. He was very open to some suggestions and he quickly got it. He just clicked.”

Things obviously changed, to the point where it’s impacted the rest of the Mariners’ overall Trade Deadline outlook.

“That kind of dulls the need for another right-handed bat in the outfield and allows us to focus on the infield,” Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said of Robles.

On this road trip through Chicago and Boston, the Mariners have acquired left fielder Randy Arozarena from the Rays, leverage reliever Yimi García from the Blue Jays and corner infielder and designated hitter Justin Turner in a separate deal with Toronto.

And by the time Rodríguez returns from the injured list, Robles will continue to warrant playing time and should fit into the corner outfield mix. Rodríguez suggested to Arozarena that he estimates he’ll be activated on Seattle’s upcoming homestand, which begins Friday.

Robles’ 33.8% hard-hit rate this season is by far the highest of his career, yet he says that it’s not a reflection of a tinkered swing, but rather, an adjustment with his lower half -- which Mariners director of hitting strategy Jarret DeHart helped install shortly after he signed, because he arrived with an open mind.

“I’ve always been a quick hips type of guy,” Robles said through an interpreter. “And JD made some type of balance in between and helped me with a scissor swing a little bit, so I can have more direction to the ball. I just got close to him and told him that I’m here to do whatever I thought was going to help me out.”

Perhaps the most telling stat to Robles’ success is what he’s doing with two strikes, as he carries a .333 batting average and .904 OPS in those sequences. For context, the Mariners’ team averages are .128 and .431, respectively, with two strikes.

“Talk about making adjustments throughout the course of an at-bat,” Servais said. “He’s really good at it. What he’s done for our club, not just on the field, but how he plays and the energy plays with -- he’s having a lot of fun right now, which you can see, and it’s rubbing off on some other guys too.”