Spend five minutes with John McLaren. If you don’t instantly feel good, you need professional help.
The Mariners manager exudes good cheer. When it comes to positive thinking, there’s Norman Vincent Peale, there’s Mary Poppins, then there’s John McLaren.
Late Friday afternoon, a couple of hours before the Mariners were to play the Oakland A’s, McLaren held court in the M’s dugout.
It couldn’t have been an easy time for him, but he never let on.
His club had lost a season-high seven straight games. The M’s had fallen back from one game behind the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to four in the race for the AL West lead. Since the All-Star break, the team was 5-10 and important contributors were in a terrible slump.
Jose Lopez was hitting .176 since the break; Raul Ibanez .157; Kenji Johjima .146; Richie Sexson .208. Even Ichiro Suzuki was more than 100 points below his season’s average, hitting .254.
Many fans and media members had given up. This is late July, just past the 100-game mark, a time to make a push to the top, not a collapse.
Yet, McLaren would have little of it. It’s a new day, he said, with new opportunities.
And he had no reason to start doubting, he said, because pennant races aren’t decided in July.
“Hopefully, going through something like this will be a positive in September,” McLaren said, “because we’ve gone through this and we know what it’s like to struggle a little bit.”
He meant it. McLaren spoke with no hesitation. His voice gave no indication that he’d rehearsed for the media.
How terminally upbeat is McLaren? He says the season-worst losing streak has had – get this – a good effect on the team.
“I think one thing it’s done is that it’s brought us together as a team a little bit more,” he said. “I think that’s a very big positive. I always try to make a negative into a positive and that’s what I’m taking from this.”
McLaren’s belief in the team is largely based on his experience (21 years in the majors) in studying body language and gauging effort. He said he sees the slump is an inevitable time in a 162-game season when too many key players struggle at the plate at the same time. In the streak, five of the seven games have been decided by one run.
That means the team has been competitive, McLaren said. It just hasn’t been getting the key hit at the right time.
It’s not, he said, a lack of effort. Therefore, the worst thing he could do would be to go off on a rampage and knock over the post-game buffet table.
“I’ve got to show patience,” he said. “If I start flying off the hook and they are doing everything they can, they’ll look at me cross-eyed, like, ‘What else do you want us to do?’
“I know they are trying hard. They’re trying too hard, probably.”
As convinced as McLaren was about snapping out of the slump, he’s not afraid to tinker, to search for some offensive consistency. He shook up the lineup Friday night for the 19th time in the 23 games since taking over for Mike Hargrove. He placed Jose Guillen third, Adrian Beltre fourth, Sexson fifth and Ibanez sixth. Designated hitter Jose Vidro hit fifth for a short time, but hit second Friday night.
The Mariners, who had scored just 19 runs in the seven-game losing streak, erupted for seven Friday night. McLaren looked like a genius. A humble genius, but a genius just the same.
“We’re going to break out of this,” he said. “We’re going to put a crooked number on the board and feel good about ourselves.”
Five minutes around John McLaren make it impossible not to.
Sports columnist John Sleeper: sleeper@heraldnet.com
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