Angels Will Manage Without Rodgers : Baseball: Bavasi fires him, hires Marlin pitching coach Marcel Lachemann to guide struggling club.

Buck Rodgers, his team holding the second-worst record in the American League but only two games off the division lead, was fired Tuesday as manager of the Angels and replaced by Marcel Lachemann.

Lachemann was the pitching coach for the Florida Marlins, managed by his brother, Rene. The Lachemanns become the first brothers to manage in the majors since 1900.

Despite the team’s three-game losing streak and 16-23 record entering Tuesday night, the dismissal was unexpected. Rodgers, in his fourth season with the club, is extremely popular with the players. He is the first manager in the majors to be fired this season.

“I surprised him, I think,” said Angel General Manager Bill Bavasi, who broke the news to Rodgers in the clubhouse around noon. “I don’t think he was expecting it right now. . . . He was very professional.”

Bavasi, in his first year as the Angel general manager, said the decision to fire Rodgers and hire Lachemann was his, with the approval of team president Richard Brown and team owners Gene and Jackie Autry.

“It’s my responsibility,’ Bavasi said. “It began with me and ended with me.”

Added Brown: “He’s a quality individual and a quality manager. But at this time, it didn’t feel like he was the right manager for this club.”

Lachemann, 52, will begin managing the team Thursday when the Angels play the Kansas City Royals at Anaheim. Meanwhile, first-base coach Bobby Knoop will fill in, then will become the bench coach.

Lachemann, a pitching coach with the Angels for nine years ending in 1992, worked in that capacity the past two seasons for the Marlins.

The decision to change managers may have been linked to the team’s weak pitching, particularly the starting rotation. California has a team ERA of 5.31, and the staff--other than Mark Langston and Chuck Finley--is largely made up of castoffs from other clubs and youngsters from their minor league system.

The Angels blew a 7-0 lead in a 10-7 loss to Seattle on Saturday, then lost 9-5 the next day. In an 8-5 loss to the Chicago White Sox at Anaheim Stadium on Monday night, the Angels led 5-4 going into the seventh inning.

Bavasi said he expects Lachemann to get the most out of the young players.

“He’s into wringing the rag dry of the talent of each young player,” he said. “In today’s financial climate, you must do that. You cannot waste a drop of young talent and this (move) is very attuned to that.

“I think that’s what made him attractive to an expansion franchise, and that’s what made his brother attractive to an expansion franchise. They’re both cut from the same cloth.”

Rodgers, 55, is one of the original Los Angeles Angels. He was first with the organization as a catcher from 1961-69. Since he returned as manager for the 1991 season, the Angels had a 179-222 record.

The Angels have been at or near the top of the AL West much of the season because the division is baseball’s weakest. As recently as last weekend, they were in first place.

Bavasi said he would have fired Rodgers if the Angels had been in first place after Monday night’s loss.

“It would have been no harder to do it,” he said. “It would just have been harder to explain it to you guys (reporters).”

The Angels’ 91 losses last season marked the most in Rodgers’ professional managing career.

Rodgers missed a large chunk of the 1992 season because of injuries stemming from a team bus crash May 21 of that year during an East Coast roadtrip.

He was riding in the front seat and was by far the most seriously injured when the bus careened down an embankment and struck a tree off a New Jersey highway. He fractured his left knee and right elbow, and remained in a wheelchair until July. He did not return to the dugout until Aug. 28.

Lachemann, who becomes the Angels’ 16th manager, pitched for seven seasons in the minor leagues, and made his major league debut with the Oakland Athletics in 1969. He was with them from 1969-71, with a 7-4 record, fives saves and a 3.44 ERA.

Lachemann briefly was the Angels’ interim manager in 1992. John Wathan, managing in place of Rodgers, took four games off when his father died, and Lachemann went 3-1 during that time.

A Growing List

Records of the 17 Angel managers including Buck Rodgers, who was fired Tuesday:

Year(s) Manager W L Pct. 1961-69 Bill Rigney 625 707 .469 1969-71 Lefty Phillips 222 225 .497 1972 Del Rice 75 80 .484 1973-74 Bob Winkles 109 127 .462 1974 Whitey Herzog* 2 2 .500 1974-76 Dick Williams 147 194 .431 1976-77 Norm Sherry 76 71 .517 1977-78 Dave Garcia 60 66 .476 1978-81 Jim Fregosi 237 249 .488 1981-82 Gene Mauch 122 103 .542 1983-84 John McNamara 151 173 .466 1985-87 Gene Mauch 257 229 .529 1988 Cookie Rojas 75 79 .487 1988 Moose Stubing* 0 8 .000 1989-91 Doug Rader 232 216 .518 1991-93 Buck Rodgers 140 172 .449 1992 John Wathan* 36 49 .419 1992 Marcel Lachemann* 3 1 .750

*--Interim