{"id":105070,"date":"2025-06-15T06:58:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T06:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/105070\/"},"modified":"2025-06-15T06:58:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T06:58:21","slug":"dave-martinez-defends-coaching-staff-as-sputtering-nationals-losing-streak-reaches-seven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/105070\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave Martinez defends coaching staff as sputtering Nationals’ losing streak reaches seven"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez bristled Saturday when asked how much of his team\u2019s recent offensive struggles should be apportioned between players and his coaches after the 4-3 loss<\/a> to the Miami Marlins.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never on coaching,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cNever on coaching. Coaches work their (butts) off every single day. We\u2019re not going to fingerpoint here and say it\u2019s coaches. It\u2019s 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\u2019s always been about the players. Always.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Nationals have lost seven in a row, tied for their longest skid of the season. They\u2019ve averaged 2.5 runs while going 2-10 in June and are a season-high 10 games under .500 at 30-40, two games ahead of the last-place Marlins in the NL East.<\/p>\n

Martinez 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 last five years.<\/p>\n

Martinez is 493-609 in eight seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI played this game a long time,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cNever once have I blamed a coach for anything. We worked our (butts) 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Washington\u2019s offensive issues have been particularly acute this month. The Nationals rank last in the majors in runs (30), walks (23), on-base percentage (.267) and slugging percentage (.304) in June and are 29th in both home runs (six) and batting average (.216) over the last two weeks. They have scored more than three runs in a game only twice this month.<\/p>\n

The Nationals went 2 for 10 with runners in scoring position Saturday, including Amed Rosario\u2019s flyout and James Wood\u2019s pop out with the bases loaded in the ninth inning to end the game. The Marlins scored their fourth run when Washington second baseman Luis Garc\u00eda Jr. dropped a pop fly with two outs in the eighth inning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese coaches, they work their (butts) off,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cAnd I know every coaching staff is like that. And the players know. Sometimes you have to put the onus on the players and they have to go out there and they have to play the game and play the game the right way. We can\u2019t hit for them, we can\u2019t catch the ball for them, we can\u2019t pitch for them, we can\u2019t throw strikes for them. They\u2019ve got to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez bristled Saturday when asked how much of his team\u2019s recent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2395],"tags":[1348,5,5857,2098,1816,778,58,4171,4,71],"class_list":{"0":"post-105070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-marlins","8":"tag-amed-rosario","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-dave-martinez","11":"tag-luis-garcia","12":"tag-marlins","13":"tag-miami","14":"tag-miami-marlins","15":"tag-miamimarlins","16":"tag-mlb","17":"tag-washington-nationals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114686086805715291","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}