Are the Padres close to firing Josh Byrnes & Bud Black?

San Diego, CA- The San Diego Padres are once again in a downward spiral. After falling to the Chicago Cubs 5-1 Thursday night for their fourth straight loss. The teams pathetic offense scored just one run for the 15th time this season and their pitching staff, whose been the only reason this team has a average record is starting to breakdown already due to the pressure and overuse.

With the season quickly spiraling out of control and new ownership in charge, the question is starting to rise that…. Is it time for a wholesale change in Padres leadership ?

Well if things don’t turn around quickly, these changes could be very much on their way.

The speculation began Thursday afternoon as Mighty 1090 Radio host Darren Smith mentioned at the start of his show, that Padres General Manager Josh Byrnes could be on the hot seat as Ron Fowler and ownership currently is not content with the team’s under achieving performance.

"“This is not speculation…Josh Byrnes is right at the end of the plank.” – @DSmithShow"

It continued Thursday night as U-T San Diego columnist Kevin Acee expressed that he’s getting an impression that Padres manager Bud Black might not last the season.

"“Two months into a season in which they have committed to operating at a financial loss — having raised the payroll more than $20 million over last year and pledged another $25 million to Petco Park improvements — lead investor Peter Seidler, Executive Chairman Ron Fowler and CEO Mike Dee are steamed at all the losing.”"

That statement right there is essentially why ownership is looking to possibly make changes.

Whether Padres fans want to believe it or not this ownership under Ron Fowler does desire to see a winning team take the field.

They added over 20 million to the payroll to give Josh Byrnes room to improve the team and instead all were seeing on the field is the same team from the past few seasons…good pitching and pathetic offense .

Lets make this clear as fans we may question at times Black’s decisions, but the Padres inability to produce an above .500 team the past few teams isn’t because of Blacks managing . Yet if  Byrnes is fired at some point this season its understandable that the new general manager will want to bring in his own guy to manage the team.

Ultimately Josh Byrnes may deserve to be fired more than Bud Black, but despite being able to survive multiple GM’s and ownerships it may be time for Bud Black to move on as well.