In the back of his mind, Seattle Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik is all but certain who the next manager of the team will be, he said Sunday.

By Tuesday, he expects it might be right out front for everyone.

“I’ve established a pecking order,” Zduriencik said Sunday evening. “I’m not sure anything will change my mind, but I reserve the right to back away, let the dust settle and think about it a bit longer, then make my decision.

“I’ll think about it (today), and we might have an announcement Tuesday.”

The new manager of the team, he said, will come from the original list of seven candidates interviewed last week – Arizona coach Chip Hale, Boston coaches DeMarlo Hale and Brad Mills, St. Louis coach Jose Oquendo, White Sox coach Joey Cora, Portland Beavers manager Randy Ready and Oakland coach Don Wakamatsu.

There will be no experienced candidates added, no need for a second round of face-to-face interviews.

That’s because Zduriencik spent the weekend talking to all of those candidates one more time by telephone, and then talking to baseball sources who knew them.

“We’re pretty close to making a decision,” Zduriencik said.

And will it be his decision, or will he have to run the hire past team CEO Howard Lincoln and president Chuck Armstrong?

“They’ve told me it’s my call,” he said.

“After the interviews, I said I wanted to take a step back, collect my thoughts and proceed from there. Now, I think it’s probably time to take a step forward.”

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