Managers Hal McRae of Tampa Bay and Luis Pujols of Detroit were fired Monday after their teams tied for the worst record in the major leagues.

The Devil Rays and Tigers each finished 55-106. But neither McRae nor Pujols was completely to blame, insisted the men who fired them.

“I’m not making him a scapegoat,” Tampa Bay general manager Chuck LaMar said. “I’m responsible for the personnel. I think he could’ve won more games with better talent.”

McRae accepted a position as an assistant to the general manager.

“I don’t think there’s many people that could’ve walked into this situation that would have made a significant difference in the number of wins we had,” Tigers president Dave Dombrowski said of Pujols.

On Sunday, the Chicago Cubs fired manager Bruce Kimm. There has been speculation that Milwaukee manager Jerry Royster and Texas’ Jerry Narron might lose their jobs, too.

Pujols replaced Phil Garner in April after an 0-6 start. The Tigers’ 1-0 loss at Toronto ended their poorest season since they went 53-109 in 1996.

“He walked into a very difficult situation that he put a lot of effort into to try to make it work,” Dombrowski said. “But it’s time to start fresh.”

Dombrowski said he has 50 candidates in mind. He hopes to interview about five of them and wants to hire someone by the end of October.

“Your ideal manager would have been a good big league player that understood the game,” Dombrowski said, “that has gone out to the minors and managed, that has been on a big league coaching staff and is ready to go.”

He mentioned only one candidate by name: Bruce Fields, who managed at Triple-A Toledo the past two seasons and led the Mud Hens to a division title this year. Dombrowski said he will interview Fields next week.

“He is a viable candidate,” Dombrowski said. “Bruce is a good baseball man. He did a great job in the minor league system for us this year. He looks like a leader.”

Former Tigers star Alan Trammell is thought to be high on the team’s list. But Dombrowski refused to comment on the former star shortstop because he hasn’t asked the San Diego Padres for permission to speak with Trammell, their first-base coach.

“To be honest with you, if they call, I will talk to them,” Trammell said Sunday. “And if that happens, then we’ll have to wait and see.”

Another name being rumored is Ken Macha, Oakland’s bench coach. Dombrowski and Macha worked together in the Montreal Expos’ organization.

“He’s a guy mentioned that is mentioned with almost every opening that becomes available,” Dombrowski said.

Pujols, a Dominican, was the Tigers’ first minority manager. He managed the Tigers’ Double-A affiliate in Erie, Pa., last season, his first in the organization. He was a major league catcher with three teams from 1977-85.

Dombrowski did not bring back any member of Pujols’ staff to coach at the major league level, but did extend offers for some to stay in the organization.

He said he didn’t offer Pujols another position because he thought it would be “awkward.”

Pujols was not available for comment Monday morning after leaving Comerica Park.

From the start, many felt McRae was set up to fail in Tampa Bay because of the club’s financial problems and a history of poor personnel decisions by LaMar.

The Devil Rays have finished last and have lost at least 90 games in all five of their seasons.

“It’s not a surprise. … The only thing I regret is we didn’t win more games,” McRae said

“We were competitive, but we lost. The bottom line is that you lost,” McRae added.

“And you lost because you weren’t good enough to win or you lost because you didn’t know how to win. We were in games. We had leads late. But we lost those games, so it goes down as a loss. It doesn’t go down as a competitive game or a game you had the lead late. It’s not counted that way.””We just don’t have a very good team. There’s nothing he can do about it,” outfielder Ben Grieve said last week. “You could put any manager in the major leagues on our team and we would have lost 100 games.”

McRae replaced Larry Rothschild on April 18, 2001, and managed the Devil Rays to a 58-90 record over the remainder of the season.