The Mariner Monitor

Leave it to the Mariners to lose, even on a day off. At least this time it’s addition by subtraction.

Yes, everyone’s favorite Mike Martz look-alike, John McLaren, was finally put out of his misery and fired Thursday morning during a travel day for the Tacoma Rainers’ Major League affiliate.

 I only hope interim GM Lee Pelekoudas took him out behind the shed and shot McLaren himself.

My interests in this team was much shorter than McLaren’s tenure at the helm, so I can’t compile a top te list of his greatest moments (although finding ten great moments period would probably be hard enough). But my lasting impression of the manager was when I saw him up close and almost personal during my trip to the Seattle-Detroit game.

With an opportunity to make things a little bit better and take advantage of a cold team in Detroit, McLaren wasn’t with his players or talking strategy with the coaches. he was too busy talking to some random lady in the stands. For all I know, he was trying to get her number. I mean, he was leaning againt the dugout railing in a suggestive manner.

Hey, I’m all for fan interaction, even if it includes the occasional player or coach hitting on a female, or male for that matter, fan. But when you team is sucking as much as his team was, the least you can do is pay attention to the field and look for something, anything, you can tweak to help the team.

But that’s all I will say about McLaren. With or without his firing, this team still sucks. The team can’t hit, it can’t pitch and it can barely field. It’s tough enough to win when just one of those areas are working, let alone none of them.

Geoff Baker does a good job summarizing how troublesome this franchise is just based on how it fired McLaren. I have to agree with him.

Why this didn’t happen earlier is beyond me. It may be a sign of how far this organization really is from becoming relevant again.