The Mariners' recently completed road trip was almost a total disaster. On the road trip the Mariners had a triple play turned against them that was really caused by lackadaisical baserunning, an alarming amount of sacrifice bunts and caught stealings, multiple shutouts, a walk-off home run in extra innings, grand slams hit in back-to-back games, and Raul Ibanez was ejected from a game for the first time in his career. Also, the road trip clinched the Mariners fourteenth consecutive losing month, a dubious achievement to say the least. In light of the downward spiral and obvious frustration surrounding the ballclub, I thought that if the Mariners were to lose yesterday Mike Hargrove might be fired. The scenario was too perfect: If the Mariners were to lose, Seattle would have had a winless road trip, giving ample reasoning to fire Hargrove. In addition, the off-day today would allow the team and media to absorb the major news without the pressure of a ballgame to prepare for in the evening. To top things off, the new manager could start off at home against the worst team in baseball.However, Seattle showed plenty of spark yesterday and finished the dismal road trip on a higher note than even the most optimistic of fans could imagine with a 14-5 rout of the division-leading Rangers. The win must have made the flight back home much more enjoyable for the ballclub, and provides momentum through the off-day and into the weekend series against the hapless Kansas City Royals. The momentum is good for the ballclub, and may have saved Hargrove's job for the time being, but Mike is far from out of the woods yet. In fact, yesterday's win may have just delayed the inevitable another four days.
I think the Mariners absolutely have to win this upcoming series against the Royals for Mike Hargrove to keep his job. As regular readers of this blog know, Kansas City is incredibly bad, probably the only team in the American League right now that is clearly worse than the Mariners. Furthermore, Kansas City is literally as bad of a road team as Major League Baseball has ever seen (their 3-22 start on the road this year tied the worst start in MLB history) but just took two out of three in Oakland, so they come in on a little bit of a hot streak. Still, if the Mariners lose two or three against Kansas City (or what if they get swept?!) on the heels of such a dismal road trip, I do not see how Hargrove can avoid being fired. The pressure is on.
Is there any other evidence that you have found that would lead one to believe Hargrove will be fired, other than the Mariners losing? I mean, that's a pretty good reason but I'm wondering if there's perhaps more going on than what we see on tv, ya know?
ReplyDelete-Allen
It's hard to say if there is much evidence that the Mariners are seriously considering firing Hargrove. On one hand, there are not any obvious signs, like interviewing possible replacements (the Royals actually interviewed their new GM, Dayton Moore, and offered him the GM job before they fired their old one, Allard Baird) and Seattle certainly is not in as bad of shape as the Royals. Complicating things is that despite Seattle's struggles, they are one hot streak away from jumping right back in the AL West race.
ReplyDeleteHowever, where there's smoke, there's fire. To me, Raul Ibanez's blow up in Texas spoke volumes because he is such a quiet player. His ejection signaled to me that there is way more tension and frustration around the ballclub than what anyone (or atleast me) thought, and if things are really that bad around the clubhouse, change is needed/on the way. Also, with the scrutiny that Hargrove is facing from the media right now, you might expect for somebody in the Mariner front office to stand behind him. Instead, Mariner president Chuck Armstrong has said very recently that the team the Mariners have right now has the talent to win the AL West, but the M's may not win the division. It's an odd comment, but it seems to support GM Bill Bavasi's moves and hint that Mike Hargrove isn't getting what he should out of these players. The way I see it, the Mariners will fire Hargrove if this team goes into a tailspin, and if they can't beat the Royals, everyone would agree that they would be in a tailspin. However, that is purely my speculation.