Fire Narron?

John Fay suggests this AM that the Reds might fire the manager Monday. Your guess is as good as mine, though I doubt they will. B. Castellini is not blind to the incompetence of his bullpen, and knows that's not his manager's fault. Plus, to fire Narron after extending him a year ago would reflect poorly on ownership.

And there's this: Unless you've got Joe Girardi/Bob Brenly/Ken Macha ready to assume the corner office, what's the point? You bring in B. Hatcher or B. Dent for the rest of the year, so what? Beyond appeasing fans, I mean. And sorry, but no team ever got good listening to its fans about how to run the club.

If you say it'd finally be a show of accountability from a club that has shown exactly none of it to this point, I'd go with that. But it better not stop there. The owner needs to add some strong words about his GM as well. Then he needs to admit that the crux of his first-day message was misguided: There will be a 5-year plan here. Then bodies need to start flying out the door... and if there is a next guy starting Tuesday, he needs to stop loving his players so much, the way Narron has. To say they're not far from being good, or that his everyday players have been busting it, is absolutely ridiculous. Even if it were entirely correct (it's not), that is not what you say about baseball's worst team.

Regardless, Narron's firing would represent nothing more than a half-pound of flesh for those (myself included) who've banged for Doing Something for at least six weeks. It is something, but it's a drop in the bucket.