Early Thursday morning the Oakland Athletics announced they had fired manager Bob Geren and replaced him with Bob Melvin, who will act as interim manager. It remains to be seen whether the switch will give the anemic offense a much-needed jolt. Furthermore, it's not going to make any difference in whether Brett Anderson requires some sort of elbow surgery. The A's problems this season have run deeper than Bob Geren.
Nonetheless, this was a needed move given the simple fact that Geren had lost the clubhouse. The most vocal evidence of this came when then closer Brian Fuentes blasted Geren for his poor communication over Fuentes' role as closer. Former A's closer Huston Street followed that up with some of his own comments in which he described Geren as his least favorite person encountered in sports between from age 6 to 27.
The A's will be holding a press conference at 1:30pm pacific time to introduce Melvin as the interim manager. The press conference will be broadcast live from US Cellular Field in Chicago on CSN California. It will also be broadcast via live online stream at csncalifornia.com. We'll have embedded video during the press conference and plenty of commentary afterward.
For more on the firing and reaction, head over to Athletics Nation and Baseball Nation.