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Padres fire manager Bud Black

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Through an ownership change, three front-office shake-ups and six losing seasons, Bud Black remained a constant for a franchise on a never-ending quest for relevancy.

No longer. The Padres fired their manager on Monday, saying it was time for a new voice after eight-plus seasons, the latest of which has gotten off to a disappointing start.

Monday afternoon, the Padres already had begun a formal, likely brief search for an interim manager for the remainder of 2015. According to sources, that person will come from within the organization, with an official announcement expected Tuesday.

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Bench coach Dave Roberts, who managed the team Monday night against the A’s, and Triple-A El Paso manager Pat Murphy are among the leading candidates. Murphy, who was not with El Paso for Monday night’s game against Albuquerque, was en route to San Diego earlier in the day to interview for the job. The Padres also have discussed promoting first-year hitting coach Mark Kotsay, but he is seen as a less likely candidate.

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Though the timing of Black’s dismissal registered as a jolt, many throughout the baseball industry figured this was an inevitability. The Padres previously extended Black’s contract through 2013, then exercised his 2014 and 2015 options.

Black, 57, entered the final year of his deal with no guarantee of what lay beyond. Already-lofty expectations for an overhauled team reached a zenith on the eve of the season, when the Padres acquired All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel.

A little more than two months later, what General Manager A.J. Preller and the club’s owners envisioned after the most active offseason in franchise history has yet to materialize. Following Sunday’s 12-inning loss to the first-place Dodgers, the Padres were 32-33, six games back in the National League West.

“It’s something that I’ve been thinking about probably the last two weeks or so,” said Preller, the Padres’ GM since last August. “There’s no magic timing or anything like that. I didn’t think there was any set date. (Sunday) night, I really thought at the end of the day it was the direction we wanted to go. I wanted to sleep on it and wake up this morning and decided to make this move.”

Preller met with Black on Monday morning at Petco Park to inform him of the decision.

“I started thinking over the last few weeks that he may not be the guy for next year,” Preller said. “I didn’t think it was fair to Buddy or anyone to make the call day-to-day depending on how we played. I just felt like if he wasn’t necessarily going to be the guy going forward, we should make a change now and then go from there.”

Black did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

While Preller said he believed Black “possesses a lot of qualities that you want in a manager,” he cited the Padres’ inconsistent play as a driving force behind the change.

“It’s not like the team has bottomed out. It’s not that the team is playing poorly,” Preller said. “But we’ve all seen some of the inconsistencies, some of the ups and downs with this team. We’re just really looking for a situation here in the next month or so where we start playing at the level we’ve shown we’re capable of.”

Simultaneously, Preller acknowledged the difficulty of the situation.

“It was a really tough call,” Preller said. “Buddy is a tremendous person and a good baseball guy. We grew to like him and had a lot of respect for him, but ultimately, we’re trying to get this team in a better position.”

Preller said ownership had empowered him to make Monday’s decision, that it was his own, and sources within the organization backed those claims.

“A lot of times, I’ve got to look myself in the mirror,” Preller said. “I think, ultimately, I’m a big part of picking the coaching staff and the players and picking the manager, and letting them know we still have a lot of good baseball to be played.”

Preller said that, after choosing an interim skipper, the Padres will re-evaluate their managerial situation at the end of the season. When that will come, whether on Oct. 4 or later, remains to be seen.

Since he was hired following the 2006 season, Black had never taken the Padres to the playoffs. In 2010, they went from an apparent stranglehold on the NL West title, to losing 10 consecutive games, to official elimination on the final day of the regular season.

Despite the collapse, Black was named the 2010 NL Manager of the Year. Multiple pundits had picked the Padres to finish last in their division.

The debate over Black’s tenure will rage on: Did he over-achieve with under-funded rosters, or could he have wrung more out of what he was dealt?

Regardless, a reckoning was coming this year. Ownership approved a strip-mining of the farm system and spent a club-record $109 million on opening-day payroll, setting an unmistakable bar.

Black was 617-680 over his first eight seasons, during which the Padres had just two winning records. Widely respected throughout the game, he could find employment quickly.

Black originally joined San Diego after seven largely successful seasons as pitching coach of the Angels. He and Anaheim manager Mike Scioscia, a close friend, won a World Series ring in 2002.

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