Wednesday night's Seattle Mariners loss to the Boston Red Sox was, unfortunately, a perfect encapsulation of Mitch Garver's season thus far.
The former Silver Slugger came to Seattle this offseason after winning the World Series with the Texas Rangers, signing a two-year, $24 million deal. But he's struggled mightily in the PNW. Garver is batting .168 in 89 games so far this year, an average so poor not even his 12 home runs and 38 RBI can offset it.
Garver's struggles felt like they reached a peak on Wednesday in the Mariners' 3-2 loss to the Red Sox. He recorded the final out in four different innings with at least one runner in scoring position, including a grounder to short with the bases loaded and two outs in the top of the 10th. Seattle would give up a run in the bottom of that frame for its 53rd loss of the year.
Afterwards, Garver addressed his terrible slump and said it's the worst he's ever played.
"It's probably the hardest I've ever had to grind," Garver said, via Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times. "This is by far the worst I've ever played in my career. Tough on myself and my family with the death threats, the 'retire' and 'you suck' and 'f------ kill yourself' and all that s---. It's getting old. The only way I change it is if I play better, but it's like continuing right now. So the worse, I play more here. And rightfully so. I'm not playing well."
Garver went on.
"I've already accepted the fact that I'm not going to hit above .200 this year," he said. "And I don't know. It might not get better. Who knows? Maybe it just gets worse. I don't know. But I show up to the field every day prepared to play, prepared to get better and work hard and control what I can control. And the people out there that say certain things they say whatever they want. I think I bring a lot to this team.
"I've never quit anything. Certainly, not going to quit this. They're gonna have to rip the jersey off my back. That's fine. That's an easy way out. I could happily retire right now, go home and live a great life with my family. That's not what I do. I made a two-year commitment to this team. They believe in me, my teammates believe in me. So it's a matter of just making it click and when it does good things will happen."
Garver is clearly going through a very difficult time, and it must be quite a valley after the peak of hitting .270 for the World Series champs.
But anything he can give at this point is welcome for Seattle. The Mariners are jostling with the Houston Astros for the division lead and are within striking distance of a wild card spot if they end up second in the AL West. If Garver can elevate his play to merely below-average instead of the worst season of his career, the Mariners could end up with a guaranteed playoff spot.
Garver has hit a low point. But as he notes above, he will not give up, and Seattle still needs his bat.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Mariners' Mitch Garver Emotionally Opened Up About 2024 Struggles After Red Sox Loss.
