Commentary: Will Dan Wilson’s hiring provide Mariners with a final-stretch jolt?

Much to fans’ chagrin, the Mariners did not make up 51/2 games on Houston since Dan Wilson debuted as manager Friday. They are 1-1 under the new skip, consistent with the 65-65 record they’ve posted this season.

They are now 41/2 games back of first place in the American League West, perhaps indicating that Wilson’s hiring put a scare into the Astros, who have lost two straight. Or … this is just baseball, where progress is as painfully incremental as beefing up biceps.

Wilson is now two games into his tenure as Scott Servais’ replacement and has faced all the thrills and throes that come with being the main man. He oversaw a four-run comeback on Friday that ended with a walkoff hit in the 10th, then on Saturday, looked on as the Mariners stranded 10 runners in a 4-3 loss to the Giants.

It almost feels like a series win is necessary to make Servais’ firing 128 games into the season justified. And even though Wilson is not wearing the “interim” tag while embarking on his first managerial journey, Seattle’s brass brought him on because it wants that final-stretch jolt.

Can Wilson provide it? Could any manager provide it?

“I think that this team we have seen over time can catch fire, and can catch fire very quickly, and it becomes very contagious very quickly,” Wilson said. “This is a good team. These guys have tremendous talent, and sometimes, you know, some kind of a change in some direction can spark something, but these guys have it in them already. It’s not anything that is going to be artificial by any means.”

I’ll provide my theory on MLB managers in a second, but first a refresher for the not-so-geeky stat folks. Wins Above Replacement (WAR) has become the go-to tool for measuring a player’s overall worth and tends to top out at around 10. Aaron Judge presently leads all players with a 9.1 WAR, and if he continues to play the way he has, his WAR will surpass 10 sometime next month.

Well, I think managers’ WAR tops out around 1 – maybe 1.5. That would still command an MLB player millions of dollars per year, but the skipper is no savior.

With 32 games left, however, the key with this Wilson hire is that scenery change – the idea that a new face is the charm the M’s need to shake their bats out of apathy.

Shortstop J.P. Crawford had nothing but plaudits for Servais when asked about him Friday. But he also was asked about how a change – any change – could help over this final fifth of the year.

“Sometimes a change is good. Getting traded over here from Philly helped me. Just a change of scenery, and you know, it could do some good,” Crawford said.

And starting pitcher Bryce Miller? What say you?

Basically, what the rest of us already know.

“It’s not really on the manager or the hitting coach. It’s on us to go out and do it,” he said. “Hopefully it sparks a little something and we get on a run and we give ourselves a chance. That’s the main thing. As long as we get to the last week and we have a chance, that’s what we’re hoping for.”

I’ve written earlier that, when the Mariners were struggling a couple months ago, fans would have accepted the deal that Seattle was still atop the division heading toward the All-Star break. I doubt many of them, at that time at least, would have been OK with the M’s simply having a “chance” in the final week. But that’s the reality of the situation.

Two years ago the Phillies fired manager Joe Girardi after a 22-29 start and ended up going to the World Series. Following a 3-11 stretch toward the end of the 2008 season, the Brewers fired manager Ned Yost with 12 games remaining, then won seven of those 12 to make the playoffs by one game.

Whether the ousting of the skipper was significant in either of these cases can never be known. But the M’s likely need something more than the .583 winning percentage Milwaukee posted after Yost was let go.

Wilson seems like a fine man respected across the organization. He is no magician, though. But over these final 32 games, perhaps the Mariners can convince themselves that he is.