The Washington Nationals fired manager Davey Martinez and general manager Mike Rizzo on Sunday night, the club announced, hours after a 6-4 loss at home completed a sweep of his struggling club by the Boston Red Sox.
The Nationals, who begin a series against the Cardinals in St. Louis on Tuesday, are 37-53 and stuck in fifth place in the National League East. And while Sunday’s loss to Boston was competitive, the first two defeats in the series, in front of a combined 71,674 fans at Nationals Park, were not. The Red Sox cruised to victories by 11-2 and 10-3 margins during the holiday weekend.
“Our family is eternally grateful for their years of dedication to the organization, including their roles in bringing a World Series trophy to Washington, D.C.,” Washington principal owner Mark D. Lerner said of Martinez and Rizzo in a statement, while citing the need for a fresh approach and new energy to the team moving forward. “While we are appreciative of their past successes, the on-field performance has not been where we or our fans expect it to be.”
Washington has a young, talented core that was expected to struggle, at times, in the clogged NL East, but perhaps not this much. And as the losing dragged on this season, it appeared to take its toll. Last month, in fact, after a loss to the Miami Marlins extended a losing streak to seven games, Martinez bristled when asked the team’s offensive struggles.
“It’s never on coaching,” Martinez said. “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. So sometimes, they have to go out there and play the game. It’s always been about the players. Always.”
During a 2-10 stretch in June, Washington averaged just 2.5 runs. Since June 1, the Nationals have scored one run or less seven times. And in Sunday’s loss to Boston, they left 15 runners on base.
“We had some opportunities, and couldn’t capitalize on them,” Martinez said after Sunday’s loss. “Some of our at-bats were crisp. We just have to keep going.”
Martinez, 60, led Washington to its first World Series title in 2019, but the Nationals struggled to a 26-34 record in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. The club began a rebuild at the trade deadline in 2021 and has not finished higher than fourth in the division in the past five years.
“I played this game a long time,” Martinez said in June. “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. These guys understand what the game is, man. I never had a such a group of coaches that work as hard as they do.”