Servais sends message: Jean Segura pulled from Mariners win for lack of effort

Jean Segura was removed from the Seattle Mariners’ win over the Texas Rangers on Friday night for not hustling enough when he scored from second base on a single in the third inning, manager Scott Servais said.

Segura, the Mariners’ All-Star shortstop, was back in the Mariners’ lineup on Saturday, though.

Servais was first asked if Segura was injured on the slide into the plate and that’s why he was pulled.

“Jean’s fine,” Servais said. “We’re going to play hard through the end of the year. I didn’t think Jean gave a really good effort trying to score from second and he came out of the game.”

Segura was hitting .323 heading into the All-Star break when he was nearly (and maybe should have been) the MVP of the All-Star Game. But in the second half of the season, Segura has hit .261 with four doubles and three homers in 52 games.

The previous 90 games, Segura had 25 doubles and seven home runs with 47 RBI.

Servais was asked if he was trying to send Segura a message removing him from Friday’s win.

“Yes,” he said, without elaborating further.

Segura is batting .301 and trying to become the first Mariners position player to have back-to-back .300 batting seasons since Ichiro did that 10 consecutive seasons from 2001-10. Servais had him back in the lineup and playing shortstop on Saturday.

“Yeah, I think I made the point last night,” Servais said. “And he’s back in there today.”

Robinson Cano seemed to hint at Segura’s play afterward as well, with the Mariners two games away from their 17th consecutive season without a playoff appearance, the longest active drought of any team in the major North American professional sports.

“We’ve got to go out and show people how much we care and respect the fans,” Cano said. “We respect each other here and we want to compete, even in games that don’t mean anything.

“I love to go out and compete. It doesn’t matter if we’re winning or we’re out. I got too much respect for the game that I’d hate to give up and at-bat or not go out and play 100 percent.”

Gordon returns

Dee Gordon was back in the Mariners lineup for the first time since Tuesday, missing time because he fouled another ball off of his foot. It’s the same one he fractured a toe on back in May, which sent his season into a bit of a freefall.

Gordon said Saturday that he’s probably fouled about nine pitches off of that foot since he fractured the toe. He was batting .353 with a .375 on-base percentage through the first 34 games. Since the injury, Gordon has batted .239 with a .259 on-base percentage.

Saturday marked Gordon’s 50th game starting in center field this season. He’s also started 76 games at second base and seven at shortstop.

.476

Cano entered Saturday with a .476 (20-for-42) batting average over his previous 10 games, including a 4-for-5 night on Friday.

Cano has hit six doubles and two home runs with 10 RBI in that span to bring his batting average up to .304, the highest of any regular on the team.

He also hit his 534th career double on Friday night, which ties him with Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig for 40th for most career doubles in MLB history.

On tap

The Mariners close out the 2018 season with their final game at 12:10 p.m. Sunday at Safeco Field.

They entered Saturday with an 87-73 record, the most wins since Jerry Dipoto and Scott Servais took over for the 2016 season.

Left-hander Roenis Elias (2-1, 2.93 ERA) will start Sunday against Rangers RHP and former Mariner Yovani Gallardo (8-7, 6.40 ERA).

This story was originally published September 29, 2018 at 12:35 AM.