Baseball notes: Struggling Mariners fire GM Jack Zduriencik

A year after receiving a contract extension, Jack Zduriencik on Friday was fired as the Seattle Mariners’ general manager.

Zduriencik was fired Friday by team President Kevin Mather after seven disappointing seasons where the club failed to end its playoff drought under his watch. Zduriencik came to Seattle before the 2009 season, arriving from Milwaukee as one of the top talent evaluators in baseball and with the task of rebuilding a thin farm system while putting a winning product on the field at the major league level.

“I was so optimistic about 2015 at the major league level that I waited too long to start asking myself and others the tough questions about what is going on here,” Mather said. “Why aren’t we having more success here? What’s going wrong, here?”

But Seattle missed too often both in player development through the draft and in free agency.

“I really enjoyed my seven years here. There is not anything I could say in a negative vibe about anything that went on in Seattle,” Zduriencik told reporters in Chicago on Friday. “It was a great experience and we’ll move on.”

Etc.

Washington center fielder/leadoff man Denard Span will have surgery on his left hip and is likely out for the season. . . . Colorado first baseman Justin Morneau, who hasn’t played since May 13 because of a neck injury and concussion symptoms, began rehab stint with double-A New Britain. . . . AL rookie-of-the-year candidates Carlos Correa of Houston and Miguel Sano of Minnesota were out of the lineup because of hamstring injuries as the teams began a three-game series in Minneapolis. . . . Cleveland Manager Terry Francona said he won’t use an out clause in his contract if club President Mark Shapiro, reportedly a candidate to succeed retiring Toronto President Paul Beeston, leaves the Indians. . . . Boston pitcher Clay Buchholz is done for the season because of a strained flexor muscle in his right elbow.