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SEATTLE - John McLaren is the latest member of the Mariners to get cut loose. He probably won’t be the last.
On the day McLaren was fired as manager, Seattle executives said they agree with franchise cornerstone Ichiro Suzuki that players should also be jettisoned from the team with the worst record in the majors.
After beginning the year with playoff expectations, the Mariners are now in the midst of what appears to be a lost season. They fired general manager Bill Bavasi this week and followed by dismissing McLaren on Thursday.
Bench coach Jim Riggleman was promoted to run the team, starting Friday night in Atlanta. He became Seattle’s fifth manager in six seasons.
“We hadn’t shown any improvement for the last couple of months. In fact, we were probably regressing,” interim GM Lee Pelekoudas said. “To give the players a chance to improve ... we thought a different voice was needed.”
The Mariners are 25-47, 17½ games behind the first-place Los Angeles Angels in the AL West and “in quicksand,” said president Chuck Armstrong. The team seems likely to miss the playoffs for the seventh consecutive season and could become the first team with a $100 million player payroll to lose 100 games.
“Well, if you think about it, if nothing changes things will continue to be the way they are,” Suzuki told The Associated Press through a translator late Wednesday night, 11 hours before Seattle fired the 56-year-old McLaren, Suzuki’s friend for a decade.
Lee Elia, called back from part-time advising earlier this month at age 70 to replace fired Jeff Pentland as hitting coach, takes Riggleman’s old job as bench coach. Jose Castro, who had been a roving minor league instructor, is the new hitting coach.
The likable, folksy McLaren was an assistant for 21½ years in the majors before he took over as Seattle’s manager last July when Mike Hargrove abruptly quit. McLaren went 68-88 in less than a full season on the job.
McLaren was the second manager in the majors to be fired this season — the New York Mets dismissed Willie Randolph this week.
Suzuki did not seem surprised to hear team CEO Howard Lincoln recently declare that no player was off-limits to a potential deal.
“To me, I think that’s just the normal way things should be,” Suzuki said.
This is the first time Lincoln has hinted Suzuki, too, could go. Any move would have to get past majority owner Hiroshi Yamaguchi in Japan, less than a year after he approved a $90 million contract extension for Suzuki.
Armstrong said Suzuki “has let me know of his feelings,” concerning the need for shedding underperforming players.
“He’s probably disappointed, like all of us,” Armstrong said.
Yet Suzuki said he isn’t disappointed, frustrated, surprised or even numb at how badly his heralded team with a revamped rotation and veteran lineup has flopped.
“I’m beyond those kind of motions. I’ve surpassed those emotions,” he said. “I don’t even know if I’m to a point where I can tell if that’s how I feel.”
The perennial hit machine has also been part of the problem. A career .331 hitter, he is batting .291, 11 points lower than he’s been this late in the season since he arrived from Japan in 2001.
Yet a clearly downcast Suzuki refused to acknowledge this is the lowest he’s been with Seattle.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
DeMarco: Plug in a well-heeled ownership group and negotiate one of those mega-bucks TV deals that are going around, and the Dodgers could become the west coast version of the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox.
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Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
After leading by 18 points in the first half, the Los Angeles Lakers were staring at a four-point deficit with less than two minutes to play.
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.