Updated Oct 15, 2011 5:08 AM ET

NEW YORK (AP)

Bob Geren has been hired by the New York Mets as bench coach, four months after he was fired as manager of the Oakland Athletics.

Geren replaces Chip Hale, who became Oakland’s bench coach last week.

In four-plus seasons with the A’s, Geren was 334-376, including 27-36 this year before he was fired on June 9. He was Ken Macha’s bench coach with Oakland in 2006.

Geren’s hiring was announced Friday.

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NEW YORK — Bob Geren has been hired by the New York Mets as bench coach, four months after he was fired as manager of the Oakland Athletics.

Geren replaces Chip Hale, who became Oakland’s bench coach last week.

What do you guys think about this.

The seat nearest manager Terry Collins in the Mets’ dugout remains vacant, but the organization is making progress in its search for a bench coach, according to baseball officials who requested anonymity because the club had not made any public pronouncements.

One candidate — former Washington Nationals manager Jim Riggleman — interviewed yesterday. Another candidate — former Oakland Athletics manager Bob Geren — will interview later this week, while Larry Bowa is not considered a candidate.

When the Mets axed Ken Oberkfell last week, part of a major shake-up to the big-league staff, team officials explained they were looking for a bench coach with big-league experience to complement Collins. Bowa spent three seasons on Collins’ staff with the Anaheim Angels in the late 1990s.

Today, the MLB Network reported that Bowa would interview. Bowa, the fiery former manager in San Diego and Philadelphia, works as an analyst for the network.

But while Bowa’s name has surfaced several times, one person with knowledge of the situation indicated there was “nothing” imminent.

That leaves two concrete candidates. Like Riggleman, Geren’s managerial tenure this season ended in acrimony. The Athletics fired Geren, 50, in June as the team spiraled downward. He assembled a 334-376 record from 2007 to 2011.

Geren spent more than 10 seasons in the Oakland organization, and was considered close with general manager Billy Beane. But things took a turn for the worse early this season. He publicly sparred with reliever Brian Fuentes. One of his former players, Rockies closer Huston Street, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Geren was “my least favorite person I have ever encountered in sports.”

Regardless, the Mets felt inclined to bring him in to talk. It was Geren’s departure that kick-started the chain reaction that led the Mets to overhaul their coaching staff. Bob Melvin replaced him in Oakland. A friend and colleague of Melvin, Chip Hale, left the Mets’ staff last week to serve as the Athletics’ bench coach.

With Hale gone, team officials decided their current staff was too thin in terms of major-league experience. Hale was critical to the 2011 staff’s pregame preparation.

For more Mets coverage, follow Andy McCullough on Twitter at twitter.com/Ledger_NYMets

Andy McCullough: amccullough@starledger.com

More Mets Coverage

• Mets to interview former Nationals manager Jim Riggleman for bench coach

• Mets’ coaching staff gets slashed, with only Dave Hudgens, Dan Warthen returning

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Oakland, CA (Sports Network) – Stuck in last place and mired in their longest losing streak in nearly three years, the Oakland Athletics fired manager Bob Geren on Thursday and named Bob Melvin as his replacement on an interim basis.

Geren, in his fifth season managing the A’s, originally signed a two-year contract with the team before 2007 that was renewed each of the last three seasons.

But the A’s finished with a losing record in each of his first three seasons after he replaced Ken Macha, only reaching .500 for the first time last year, when they were 81-81.

They have dropped nine straight games — their longest skid since a 10-game losing streak from July 28-August 7, 2008. They have been swept in consecutive three-game series by the Yankees, Red Sox and Orioles.

“We need to play better,” Geren, 49, said after Wednesday’s 3-2 loss to Baltimore. “First pitch on — every single inning.”

Melvin, a former manager of the Seattle Mariners and Arizona Diamondbacks, will be in charge of trying to turn things around, at least for the time being.

He takes over a team that entered Thursday 27-36 and eight games behind American League West leader Texas.

Melvin, who guided the Diamondbacks to a first-place finish in 2007 and once led the Mariners to 93 wins, will be introduced at a Thursday afternoon press conference in Chicago, where the A’s are starting a four-game series against the White Sox.

Geren originally joined the A’s organization in 1999 as manager of Single-A Modesto and spent the next three seasons at the helm of Triple-A Sacramento.

A former major league catcher — he played four seasons with the Yankees, and one with the Padres — Geren also managed in the Red Sox farm system for three years.

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OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — With his banged-up team mired in a nine-game losing streak and rampant speculation about the tenuous status of manager Bob Geren, general manager Billy Beane felt he had no other choice than to make a change at skipper.

The A’s fired a manager during the season for the first time in a quarter century on Thursday, letting Geren go after four-plus seasons and bringing in former Arizona and Seattle skipper Bob Melvin for the rest of the season.

“It felt like at this point a change was necessary,” Beane said. “It got to the point where the emphasis was on the status of the manager on a daily basis and no longer on the field. When that starts to happen, you need to shift the focus to what’s really important, which is performance. That’s how we came to this decision.”

Geren’s tenure in Oakland was marked by numerous injuries, a lack of offense, questions about his communication skills and high-profile departures as he was unable to post a winning season after taking over an AL West championship team from Ken Macha.

Geren posted a 334-376 record, including a 27-36 mark this season that has left Oakland eight games behind Texas in last place in the AL West.

The A’s currently have four starting pitchers on the disabled list, including a season-ending shoulder injury for Dallas Braden. Oakland also was without injured All-Star closer Andrew Bailey for the first two months and is last in the American League with just 223 runs through the first 63 games.

“Bob Melvin will inherit some of the challenges that Bob had,” Beane said. “Bob lost four starting pitchers in the space of three weeks. That was a tough body blow for the team. That was very difficult from Bob’s standpoint.”

Melvin, 49, took the helm for the series opener in Chicago against the White Sox on Thursday night. He posted a 493-508 record in seven seasons as manager with Seattle and Arizona. He led the Diamondbacks to the NL West title in 2007 and also won 93 games in his rookie season with the Mariners in 2003.

Melvin was also on Bob Brenly’s staff as bench coach in 2001 when the Diamondbacks won the World Series and the following year when they won the NL West. Melvin also coached for Milwaukee and Detroit.

“He really knows how to work with young players,” said Oakland outfielder Conor Jackson, who played for Melvin in Arizona. “It’s a great team for him. We have a lot of young talent and I feel like he’s a pretty good molder of personalities and baseball players as well.”

Melvin played 10 seasons in the majors as a catcher with Detroit, San Francisco, Baltimore, Kansas City, Boston, the Yankees and White Sox. He batted .233 with 35 homers and 212 RBIs in 1,955 career at-bats.

Melvin is a Bay Area native who was born in Palo Alto, went to high school in Menlo Park, played college ball at Cal, spent time with the Giants in the majors and now gets to manage the A’s.

“It’s a dream come true,” he said. “This doesn’t happen very often in baseball, where you literally get to come home in the capacity that I do.”

The beleaguered Geren had come under criticism from his bullpen in recent weeks for a lack of communication with reliever Brian Fuentes and former Oakland closer Huston Street publicly criticized him.

That started the speculation about whether Geren would make it through his final season under contract.

“I can’t say it was a surprise,” Fuentes said. “Regardless whether it was our team or any other team, when things don’t go well there are always moves that are made.”

It was the rash of injuries and the total lack of offense that led to the current losing streak that finally spelled the end of Geren’s tenure.

With no homegrown hitting stars and disappointing starts by offseason acquisitions like Hideki Matsui and David DeJesus, the A’s find themselves in last place despite a stellar young pitching staff headed by All-Star Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez and recently injured Brett Anderson.

“It’s got great pitching, good athletes and we’re going to try to play the game we’re suited to play,” Melvin said. “We’re probably not going to sit around and play for three-run homers a whole lot. We play in a ballpark that’s probably more conducive to being aggressive and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

The current skid is the longest for the A’s since a 10-gamer in July 2008 and the fifth-longest single-season losing streak since the team moved to Oakland in 1968.

This is the first time the A’s have fired a manager during the season since getting rid of Jackie Moore after 73 games in 1986. Jeff Newman took over for 10 games on an interim basis before Tony La Russa was brought in to start a run that included four division titles and the 1989 World Series championship.

Beane said he started the process of evaluating Geren’s status a few weeks ago before making the ultimate decision.

“Whenever you replace your manager, it’s a drastic move,” Beane said. “I’ve never had to do it in my tenure as general manager. This is a new script for myself. I don’t know if you ever know what the right time is.”

___

AP freelancer Bradford Doolittle in Chicago contributed to this report.

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Former D-Backs skipper Bob Melvin takes over from Geren on interim basis

The Associated Press

Posted:

Jun 9, 2011 12:59 PM ET

Last Updated:

Jun 9, 2011 3:21 PM ET

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There is the quick update of the day.

Veteran reliever Brian Fuentes did not back down from the comments he made about manager Bob Geren’s lack of communication with him about his late-inning role with the Oakland Athletics following Monday night’s loss to the Angels.
The only thing the four-time All-Star left-hander regretted was venting his frustrations to the media instead of Geren himself. And before Tuesday night’s game they had a closed-door meeting in Geren’s office, where they apparently resolved their differences.
“I meant what I said and I stand behind what I said. It was just the wrong outlet,” Fuentes said at his locker. “I heard a lot of criticism on why there weren’t discussions with the manager first before going to the media. From the outside in, it appears one way, and it’s really not.
“There had been discussions. There had been multiple discussions, and I felt like it wasn’t getting anywhere. It was more of a frustration thing. It still wasn’t right what I did, but it wasn’t getting through.”
Geren was satisfied with the results of the meeting, and said there would be no disciplinary fallout.
“I gave Brian my thoughts, he gave me his thoughts, we shook hands and everything’s fine,” said Geren, who had been using Fuentes to close in place of the injured Andrew Bailey. “We’ve lost some games and people are frustrated.
Geren added, “I told him that until he strings together a few good outings in a row that we would stay with (Grant) Balfour for the short-term. I just told him to be ready late in the game and he has no problem with that.”
Fuentes, who led the majors with a career-high 48 saves in 2009 while with the Angels, had plenty on his mind after becoming the first Oakland reliever ever to absorb a loss in four consecutive appearances.
On Monday night, Fuentes was pulled with one out in the eighth inning and a runner at first base. Geren brought in Michael Wuertz, who gave up a tiebreaking RBI double to Torii Hunter and a two-run single to Jeff Mathis in the A’s 4-1 defeat.
“That’s where it all started. It was a little confusing for me,” Fuentes said. “But I realize that he’s the manager and I’m a player, and his decisions are the right ones — whether I think they’re right or wrong.”
The run charged against the 11-year veteran raised his ERA to 5.06 in 23 appearances. Fuentes has allowed 20 hits and 10 walks over 21 1-3 innings.
“Most importantly, and I know that I need to start pitching better,” Fuentes said.
“Someone said, ‘Well you’re not pitching well, so you shouldn’t say anything.’ But whether I throw up 50 scoreless (innings) or give up 50 runs, if I have something on my mind, I’m going to state it, you know? Should I have stated it the way I did last night? No.”
The controversy was a subject of discussion on the other side of the field, where Angels manager Mike Scioscia and pitching coach Mike Butcher did their best to stay above the fray.
“We had an open line of communication when Brian was here,” Butcher said. “When he had a bad outing here, his comments were always that he was going to turn the page — even when he had a good game. He was the master at turning the page and letting go of whatever happened that day. He never brought a good or a bad game into the next day. And that’s what makes good closers.”

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PHOENIX — The Oakland Athletics’ starting rotation came into focus over the weekend when manager Bob Geren announced Brandon McCarthy as his fifth starter.

McCarthy, a 6-foot-7 right-hander, joins Trevor Cahill and left-handers Brett Anderson, Gio Gonzalez and Dallas Braden, who will precede McCarthy in that order.

Signed to a one-year, $1 million deal in December, McCarthy is 1-1 with a 4.50 earned-run average in six appearances (three starts) in the Cactus League. His ERA inflated after a poor outing Friday against the Los Angeles Angels, when he allowed 10 hits and six earned runs.

But McCarthy, 27, strung together a series of strong performances before that while showing pinpoint control. He has struck out 20 and walked just one in 26 innings, a main factor in Geren’s choosing him over right-hander Tyson Ross.

“He’s got some previous experience and had a great spring,” Geren said. “It wasn’t an easy decision, and I’m happy it wasn’t. That means guys are throwing the ball well.”

McCarthy is 20-24 with a 4.56 ERA in 110 career games (56 starts) with the Chicago White Sox and Texas Rangers. But injuries have limited him to 45 appearances in the majors since 2007. He suffered stress fractures in his right shoulder in 2007 and 2009, and inflammation in his right forearm sidelined him for the first four months of 2008.

Given those setbacks, winning a rotation spot is an accomplishment. But McCarthy won’t spend much time celebrating.

“That’s the trap you can fall into with spring,” he said. “It’s the beginning of a six-month journey. It’s a nice accomplishment to leave here with that spot, but you want to keep earning that for the next six months.”

Cahill, 23, will be the opening-day starter. The sinkerballer took a quantum leap last year in his second season as a big-league starter, going 18-8 with a 2.97 ERA and making his first All-Star team.

“He’s deserving,” Geren said. “He made the All-Star team, he led our team in wins and he had a great spring. The great thing for me was that a lot of guys were deserving.”

With closer Andrew Bailey (forearm) likely to start the season on the disabled list, either Ross or Bobby Cramer, a lefty, is likely to make the bullpen.

Six spots in the bullpen figure to go lefties Brian Fuentes, Craig Breslow and Jerry Blevins and right-handers Grant Balfour, Michael Wuertz and Brad Ziegler.

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PHOENIX — The Oakland Athletics’ starting rotation came into focus over the weekend when manager Bob Geren announced Brandon McCarthy as his fifth starter.

McCarthy, a 6-foot-7 right-hander, joins Trevor Cahill and left-handers Brett Anderson, Gio Gonzalez and Dallas Braden, who will precede McCarthy in that order.

Signed to a one-year, $1 million deal in December, McCarthy is 1-1 with a 4.50 earned-run average in six appearances (three starts) in the Cactus League. His ERA inflated after a poor outing Friday against the Los Angeles Angels, when he allowed 10 hits and six earned runs.

But McCarthy, 27, strung together a series of strong performances before that while showing pinpoint control. He has struck out 20 and walked just one in 26 innings, a main factor in Geren’s choosing him over right-hander Tyson Ross.

“He’s got some previous experience and had a great spring,” Geren said. “It wasn’t an easy decision, and I’m happy it wasn’t. That means guys are throwing the ball well.”

McCarthy is 20-24 with a 4.56 ERA in 110 career games (56 starts) with the Chicago White Sox and Texas Rangers. But injuries have limited him to 45 appearances in the majors since 2007. He suffered stress fractures in his right shoulder in 2007 and 2009, and inflammation in his right forearm sidelined him for the first four months of 2008.

Given those setbacks, winning a rotation spot is an accomplishment. But McCarthy won’t spend much time celebrating.

“That’s the trap you can fall into with spring,” he said. “It’s the beginning of a six-month journey. It’s a nice accomplishment to leave here with that spot, but you want to keep earning that for the next six months.”

Cahill, 23, will be the opening-day starter. The sinkerballer took a quantum leap last year in his second season as a big-league starter, going 18-8 with a 2.97 ERA and making his first All-Star team.

“He’s deserving,” Geren said. “He made the All-Star team, he led our team in wins and he had a great spring. The great thing for me was that a lot of guys were deserving.”

With closer Andrew Bailey (forearm) likely to start the season on the disabled list, either Ross or Bobby Cramer, a lefty, is likely to make the bullpen.

Six spots in the bullpen figure to go lefties Brian Fuentes, Craig Breslow and Jerry Blevins and right-handers Grant Balfour, Michael Wuertz and Brad Ziegler.

Not much else going on in the MLB planet today.

GOODYEAR, Ariz. — The Oakland Athletics can only hope that All-Star closer Andrew Bailey isn’t seriously hurt.

Bailey left with discomfort in his pitching elbow after facing three batters Monday in a 9-8 loss to the Cleveland Indians. The right-hander had elbow surgery Sept. 24 to remove bone chips and bone spurs. He had Tommy John surgery in 2004.

“He had tightness down his forearm, from the elbow down,” manager Bob Geren said. “He’s being checked out.”

Bailey will be examined Tuesday by renowned specialist Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Ala. The A’s said they would provide more information on the reliever’s status once it was available.

The AL Rookie of the Year in 2009 and an All-Star the past two seasons, Bailey spent a month and a half on the disabled list last season. He has a 1.70 ERA and 51 saves in 132 1-3 career innings.

He left after giving up an RBI double to Travis hafner and then throwing one pitch to Ezequiel Carrera.

“He winced after he threw the pitch,” Geren said. “His velocity was good until that.”

Geren said Bailey, who has been brought along slowly in camp, registered 94 mph on the radar gun. He had struck out two in one perfect inning in his spring debut Thursday against Kansas City.

“He’s been doing everything the right way,” Geren said. “We moved him back one day to give him some rest, but he had not experienced any problems.”

Even if Bailey ends up being sidelined for an extended period, Oakland does have depth in the bullpen. The A’s spent $18.6 million this offseason to sign a pair of proven, late-inning relievers: former closer Brian Fuentes and setup man Grant Balfour.

Chris Carter had three RBIs on two home runs for Oakland, including a thundering shot off the scoreboard well beyond the left-field fence. His two-run drive to right-center tied the score at 8. Both came off first-pitch fastballs by Jeanmar Gomez.

Carter does not have a roster spot despite four consecutive productive seasons in the A’s farm system. The 24-year-old has totaled 123 homers and 406 RBIs since 2007 in the minors – but also had 538 strikeouts. He fanned 21 times and hit only .186 with three homers in 24 games for Oakland late last season.

A’s starter Dallas Braden allowed six runs – four earned – in four innings.

“He had a positive breaking ball, negative command,” Geren said. “We had some young-player mistakes behind him, too.”

Hafner had three hits, including a pair of RBI doubles, while Jack Hannahan and Shelley Duncan each hit a two-run double for Cleveland.

The Indians’ third base outlook got a little clearer when rookie Lonnie Chisenhall was among seven players sent to the minors despite hitting .478.

“He still has development to do in all aspects of the game,” general manager Chris Antonetti said. “He has strengths, but needs to hit better against lefties, get better strike-zone judgment and is still transitioning from shortstop to third. He also has to mature as a person and player.”

Former shortstop Jason Donald has the inside track to open at third – though he has missed seven of the past nine games with a sore left hand, which was hit by a pitch March 5.

“We had a second MRI taken and it showed nothing broken, but a very deep bone bruise,” Donald said. “I hope to be back this weekend. I need to get more reps at third.”

Hannahan’s two hits gave him a .370 average in 11 games as he keeps pressing to win the job.

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By Joe Stiglich
Oakland Tribune

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