The Washington Nationals are in a bad place right now, and that could mean something bad for manager Dave Martinez, who enter this season on the hot seat amid a stretch of five straight losing seasons.
Some of Martinez’s frustrations might have leaked out on Saturday, after Washington fell 4-3 to the last-place Miami Marlins for its seventh-straight loss.
No offense has scored fewer runs than the Nationals in the month of June. When asked about his team’s lack of scoring, specifically if it fell on the players or the coaches, Martinez interjected to make clear he didn’t think it was the coaches’ fault.
Martinez’s full question and answer:
Q: When you look at the offense as a whole, I know you guys haven’t produced like you wanted to this month. For you, how much of that is on the players, on the coaching? What’s —
A: It’s never on coaching. Never on coaching. Coaches work their asses off every single day. We’re not going to finger point here and say it’s coaches. It’s never on the coaches. They work hard.
The message is clear. All the work is done prior. Sometimes, they got to go out there and they got to play the game. It’s always been about the players. Always. I played this game a long time. Never once have I blamed a coach for anything. We worked our asses off to get better. They gave us information and we used it, so these guys understand what the game is.
These coaches, l’ve never had such a group of coaches that worked as hard as they do. They’re here diligently. They go over everything. They sit with the players every day. These coaches, they work their asses off. Every coaching staff is like that. And the players know, sometimes you got to put the onus on the players. They got to go out there and they got to play the game. And play the game the right way. We can’t hit for them. We can’t catch the balls for them. We can’t pitch for them. We can’t throw strikes for them. They got to do that.
You can only wonder how that’s going to be received in the Nationals’ clubhouse.
Martinez is at an awkward point in his Nationals career. He got the biggest job security boost a manager can get when D.C. won its first World Series title in 2019, his second year as manager, but he has overseen an extended rebuilding, and so far unsuccessful, cycle in the years since.
After a disappointing and shortened 2020 season, the Nationals opted to trade away everything that wasn’t nailed down in 2021 and commit to the future, keeping Martinez and general manager Mike Rizzo in place. The team has landed some premium talent, mostly through the Juan Soto trade that netted them current standouts James Wood, C.J. Abrams and Mackenzie Gore, but the team has failed to coalesce into a winner as its big-name prospects reach the majors.
Dave Martinez does not appear happy with his players. Is the reverse also true? (Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
(Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The team won only 71 games in both 2023 and 2024, and is now on pace for 69 wins after Saturday’s loss. So much of that comes down to the team’s failure to draft and develop talent in the years since 2019 — most of their current successes came to them already on the right track, via trades. Martinez’s coaches might be working hard, but that overall trend can’t be ignored.
Martinez won a title, yes, but he now holds a 493-608 record as manager and is overseeing a team that is stuttering when it should be succeeding again. That can’t entirely be the players’ fault, as Martinez appeared to insist Saturday.
3 MLB managers have already been fired this season
If the Nationals opt to part with Martinez, they would be the fourth MLB club to do so this season.
The Pittsburgh Pirates struck first last month when they let go of Derek Shelton, and the Colorado Rockies followed that up days later when they fired Bud Black amid the worst start in MLB history. The most surprising firing came from the Baltimore Orioles, who cut loose Brandon Hyde two years after a 101-win season.
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