John McLaren's Job Is At Risk

With the way the Seattle Mariners have rolled over the last few weeks, and fallen out of the playoff race, you figure somebody has to take the fall. That's just the way things work in this game. Unfortunately for John McLaren, he's the one who's most likely to lose his job for the Mariners performance.

It may not be fair considering he only took over the team when Mike Hargrove decided he'd had enough, but McLaren took over a team that was playoff bound at the time. Any outsider looking in would see that the Mariners were winning under Hargrove, and fell apart under McLaren. All of which means it won't be surprising if fans and media start calling for the Mariners to find a new manager for next season.

It's something McLaren is fully aware of.

"I know it's going to go that way at some point, because you guys (reporters) have a job to do, but I'm just thinking about the game today," he said.

"Knowing the guys play hard helps me," he said. "If they weren't playing hard and I was having to try to motivate them and stuff it would probably be extremely more difficult."

In his 37 years of baseball, McLaren says he's never seen anything like what's happened to the Mariners these last few weeks. Something I probably wouldn't go around advertising if I knew it could cost me my job.

I don't expect McLaren to be back next season. It's not like the Mariners went out and hired him to run the team, they just had to find somebody after they got blindsided by Hargrove, and McLaren was there. I think this offseason Bill Bavasi is going to go out and find somebody of his choosing to manage this club next season.