SEATTLE (AP) -The usually cheerful manager let loose with a seething rant. The demoralized general manager ordered his 25 players to sit at their lockers for an accountability drill to answer why they are so bad. The team president ripped into his veteran coaching staff.
Now what for these sunken Seattle Mariners?
With noise still echoing from manager John McLaren's profanity-filled tirade Wednesday after their 20th loss in 27 games, the Mariners spent an off day in Boston on Thursday pondering this: There are still 102 games left in this face-plant of a season for the worst team in the major leagues, one with a $117 million payroll that expected to be in the playoffs this fall.
Instead, Seattle is in ruins. The Mariners have followed their worst May in history, 8-20, with four consecutive losses in June. They enter Friday's series opener at Fenway Park with a 21-39 record.
``It's a completely demoralizing position we're in right now based on the legitimate expectations,'' general manager Bill Bavasi said after McLaren went wild. ``It's true you have to try to stay optimistic - but it's also true you have to get fed up at some point.''
No team that has been as low as 17 games below .500 has rallied to make the playoffs.
``We went into spring training thinking, we can win. We can win our division, and then we'll go from there,'' Bavasi said. ``Those goals have radically changed, because now we have to just look at today's game, and work on tomorrow's.''
Yet Bavasi said the Mariners are not giving up on 2008.
How much more of this must go on before he finally does?
``That's going to be a long time, because we're not going to give in,'' Bavasi said.
He was the general manager of the Angels - the same team Seattle now trails by 15 1/2 games in the AL West, the largest deficit in baseball - in 1995. That year the Mariners, managed by Lou Piniella, rallied from 13 games behind the Angels on Aug. 2 to force a one-game tiebreaker and then won the division title.
``You probably had the same question of Lou and the guys in '95,'' Bavasi said when asked about when 2009 will become the priority.
But those Mariners had Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson and a teenage reserve shortstop named Alex Rodriguez. When asked if the current roster he assembled can turn it around without changes, Bavasi said: ``Can it? It can. A lot of things 'can' happen. I don't know that it will. ... I'm not sure we are going to give them the chance to.''
``We're not going to just sit with this.''
Yet any moves will come incrementally - and apparently not with the manager.
Bavasi said again McLaren's job is not the issue, that his players are. McLaren, a coach for 21 1/2 years in the major leagues before manager Mike Hargrove's sudden resignation during an eight-game winning streak last July, is 64-80 in 11 months on the job.
Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln is known to be reluctant to wholesale remodeling among team leaders. Lincoln said the value of continuity was one of the reasons he retained McLaren and Bavasi amid fans' calls to fire them last fall, even though Seattle has had one winning season since Bavasi was hired in November 2003.
The slumping players agree McLaren should be spared.
``The bottom line is, it's up to us to do our jobs,'' said Jose Vidro, Wednesday's cleanup hitter who is batting .225 with 28 RBIs in 47 games.
For all their frustrations, the Mariners have made few changes so far. The only member of the opening-day roster no longer with the team is long reliever Cha Seung Baek. He was traded for a minor league pitcher, a move that didn't exactly put the clubhouse on alert.
Bavasi said he is essentially stuck for now with the core he has this far ahead of the trade deadline.
``I can't make a deal anyway right now that's worth a damn,'' Bavasi said.
Yet Vidro and first baseman Richie Sexson, among others, could be in trouble.
Sexson, the slumping slugger and lightning rod for fan frustrations, is batting .200 with 21 RBIs in 47 games. He did not follow Bavasi's unusual order that all players man their posts immediately after Wednesday's loss. He appeared about 15 minutes into the availability, showered and dressed, for a brief walk-by of his locker before disappearing into an off-limits eating area.
Sexson is in the final year of a contract that is paying him $14 million this season. When Bavasi was asked if he would hesitate to release an underperforming player whom McLaren determines has to go, the GM said: ``If he's signed for five more years, no, we'd probably try to make that work. But if we've got a guy that this is his last year on the contract, and to release him you eat some money? Consider eating.''
He might save room to swallow Vidro's deal. The 33-year-old will also likely be a free agent after this season. Vidro needs to get at least 600 plate appearances this year to activate a $6 million contract option for 2009. He has 186 through the first 37 percent of this season.
Bavasi said Jeff Clement, a prized hitting prospect tearing up Triple-A again after a failed, 15-game promotion earlier this year, will return soon. Clement can be the DH. The GM also mentioned Bryan LaHair, a Triple-A first baseman who was batting .272 with eight home runs and 33 RBIs. LaHair might just be waiting on Sexson's potential release.
Like the rest of Seattle.Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
