Servais aims to guide Seattle to next step in 2nd year

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — A year ago, Scott Servais met reporters at the Winter Meetings for the first time, having never managed a game in the Major Leagues, and he talked about getting to know the players and personalities of his new Mariners club.

Things are different this year. Servais no longer is a rookie skipper. His team now knows him well, and vice versa. But the primary challenge remains the same. The Mariners must take the next step and push their way into the postseason for the first time since 2001 in order to begin achieving what the club’s new regime has set out to do since last year’s front-office makeover.

“It’s a lot different, a lot more comfortable,” Servais acknowledged. “You kind of know going through an entire season, first of all, how long the season is. You know how important it is to be consistent, what’s the message you’re sending. And developing relationships with the players is very important.

“I thought we took some huge strides at the end of the year, especially from our veteran group and seeing those guys stepping up and leading. We’re really looking forward to this year. I think the guys are anxious to get back and get after it. We’re starting to come up with our own identity. I think you saw it last year, a lot of the personalities on our club. And not only the superstars that we have, but it’s Leonys Martin, Edwin Diaz, it’s guys letting their personalities come out. We’re a fun team to watch and I think we’ll have a fun year.”

The Mariners made a 10-win improvement last year in Servais’ first go-round, hiking their record to …

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