Washington Nationals announced that Dave Martinez is leaving immediately after facing….
I asked Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez, who has seen seven seasons of these “Battles of the Beltway” with the Baltimore Orioles, if after all this time, the series had actually developed into a rivalry.
“Honestly, no,” Martinez said. “It really hasn’t.”
As of Wednesday, they’ve played 95 games against each other — some of them entertaining, but few of them passionate.
Baltimore has a 55-40 advantage in the two-game home-and-away series the two teams have played against each other since 2006. Washington closed the gap slightly with an impressive 3-0 win Tuesday night at Nationals Park over the highly-touted Oriole before a crowd of 30,000 — a good number of them Orioles fans.
No reports of fights. No tension in the ballpark. They might as well have been playing the Seattle Mariners.
How can there be a rivalry when the teams partnered up by wearing their respective “City Connect” uniforms, in a promotion called “Cities Connected?” When each team pledged a contribution to youth programs in the other’s city?
A partnership? How’s that worked out so far?
Los Angeles Angels manager Ron Washington has had his hands full ever since the team decided to hire him before the start of the 2024 season. The Angels were already coming off losing Shohei Ohtani and he inherited a roster that had Mike Trout, who was coming off an injury riddled season, and a whole lot of question marks after that.
Those questions haven’t gotten any easier or less numerous as the season has progressed. Trout is hurt again (and so is Anthony Rendon, but no one should have expected anything else) and the rest of the Angels’ roster feels like a lot of slightly square pegs that Washington his trying to fit into round holes in order to create some established roles. So far, he has not been able to do so and he has resorted to some … less than conventional methods.
Washington they went to explain that he doesn’t trust his young players high in the lineup right now. This also isn’t some grizzle old manager that just doesn’t trust young guys, either, as Wash kept receipts to explain his thought process. Nearly every time he has placed a guy like Jo Adell, Zach Neto, or Nolan Schanuel in a premium spot in the lineup, they have tried to do too much at the plate and fallen on their faces.
There is a risk that Washington’s methodology here leads to some subpar lineups or even hurt some feelings with his young players. However, it is on those guys to perform in those big spots, and while picking names at random doesn’t feel like a great process, there is a method to the madness in this particular case until guys start stepping up.
