The San Diego Padres announced on Monday that manager Bud Black has been relieved of his duties just over two months into the 2015 MLB season.
Black is the third manager to be fired this season as he joins Ron Roenicke of the Milwaukee Brewers and Mike Redmond of the Miami Marlins. While those two men were replaced by front office personnel, Black, in the meantime, will be succeeded by Padres' bench coach Dave Roberts.
The club also announced it will "immediately begin the formal search for an Interim Manager for the remainder of the 2015 season."
However, this move comes as no surprise. Black had been managing the Pads since 2007 and accumulated a record of just 649-713, failing to win the NL West division or even make the postseason once. Black was inherited by the team's new ownership in 2012 as well as general manager A.J. Preller last season, so it was speculated if San Diego didn't get off to a good start in 2015 that Black would ultimately be a casualty.
"Most in the industry knew that because he was a holdover that he would be in trouble," FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal said on the MLB Network earlier today.
"This is a move, again, that I don't know if anybody in the industry will be surprised by, but a lot of people won't like it."
Rosenthal also reported earlier in the season that the Padres perhaps would not allow their Triple-A manager, Pat Murphy, to join the Milwaukee Brewers coaching staff because the organization viewed him as Black's potential successor in the event their plan didn't go accordingly.
The Padres underwent a drastic makeover this offseason with the guidance of Preller, who acquired big names such as Matt Kemp, Justin Upton, Wil Myers, James Shields, Craig Kimbrel, Derek Norris and others to put San Diego back on the map in a division that has been dominated by the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers over the years.
Black had steered the club to a 32-33 record this far into the season, which left them six games behind the Dodgers for first place and three games behind the Giants for second place. They are also four games behind the Chicago Cubs for the second NL wild-card spot.
Preller has a penchant for making headline grabbing moves, so keep an eye out for the Padres to possibly contact former managers Ron Gardenhire, Dusty Baker, Ozzy Guillen or Jim Leyland about the opening.
