BALTIMORE -- With Fredi Gonzalez out as manager of the Florida Marlins, attention turned to former Mets and Rangers manager Bobby Valentine as a potential replacement, as Valentine withdrew from consideration for Baltimore's open position.

Florida owner Jeffrey Loria, who declared his playoffs-or-bust expectations for his team in spring training, announced Wednesday that he had decided to change managers after 70 games, saying "we can do better and be better."

Valentine and Loria have been friends for 20 years, and there has been contact during the past year about Valentine's interest in managing the Marlins. But Valentine has never had anything close to a formal interview with the club.

Valentine, currently an ESPN analyst, pulled his name out of consideration for the vacant Orioles job Wednesday in order to "direct my energies in another direction."

"Bobby Valentine is a candidate for this position. He was spoken to by me today," club president David Samson said. "I told him Fredi had been dismissed, and that we were interested in speaking with him in the very near future about our opening."

Samson cautioned that Valentine shouldn't be thought of as the front-runner, according to the Palm Beach Post, but a source told the New York Daily News: "I'd say it's about 95 percent that it will be Valentine ... Loria has already told him he's his guy."

The Marlins are 35-36 following Wednesday night's win against Baltimore. Florida began Thursday in fourth place in the NL East, 6½ games behind first-place Atlanta.

Edwin Rodriguez, who has spent the past 1½ seasons as manager of Triple-A New Orleans, will take over as manager on an interim basis. Also fired were bench coach Carlos Tosca and hitting coach Jim Presley; they were replaced on an interim basis by Brandon Hyde and John Mallee.

"This team seems to be stuck in neutral, and our competitors are on the accelerator," Marlins president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest said later on Wednesday. "We were looking for a leadership change to hopefully get us on the accelerator. That's a big part of what we did today."

Gonzalez told ESPNdeportes.com's Enrique Rojas that the firing did not come as a shock. "It doesn't surprise me, these things are normal in this job," he said.

Gonzalez added that his dismissal was not connected to his run-in earlier this season with shortstop Hanley Ramirez, in which he pulled Ramirez from a game for failing to hustle after a ball he booted. Ramirez criticized Gonzalez to the media and sat out the next game, but later apologized.

It appeared at the time that Marlins players and management supported Gonzalez in his spat with Ramirez, the team's best-known and highest-paid player.

"This is something that I want to make very clear: My exit from the Marlins had nothing to do with Hanley," Gonzalez told ESPNdeportes.com. "The situation with Hanley had to do with them -- the Marlins. They wanted to make a change to move in another direction."