Nats manager blames players for offensive struggles: ‘Never on coaching’

Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez took direct aim at his players for the club’s recent struggles at the plate.

“It’s never on coaching,” Martinez said after Saturday’s loss to the Miami Marlins, according to Spencer Nusbaum of The Washington Post. “Coaches work their asses off every single day. We’re not going to finger point here and say it’s on the coaches. It’s never on the coaches.”

The Nationals have struggled to generate offense in June, scoring a league-worst 30 runs in 12 games.

“Sometimes you got to put the onus on the players,” Martinez said. “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.”

Martinez has been the Nationals’ manager since 2018. He helped lead the franchise to its first World Series in 2019, but the team hasn’t made it back to the postseason since.

“I feel like coaching is a very tough gig,” Nationals first baseman Josh Bell said, according to MASN’s Mark Zuckerman. “They’re here before we are, and they leave after we leave. We all have different personalities in here, and sometimes we’re willing to listen and sometimes we’re not. They’re just trying to chip away and help us become the best version of ourselves, and hopefully it shows up in between the lines.”

The Nationals have lost seven straight games to drop to 30-40 on the season. Washington’s -61 run differential is third worst in the National League ahead of only the Miami Marlins and Colorado Rockies.

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