Contract dispute leads to manager quitting
The players poured out of the dugout to celebrate yet another victory Thursday afternoon. Some grabbed teammate Danny Espinosa as he scored the winning run. Others raced toward Laynce Nix, who had delivered the decisive sacrifice fly in the ninth.
But by the time the joyous Nationals players reached their clubhouse, they were in for a shock. Their manager had quit.
Jim Riggleman resigned his position just moments after his team won for the 11th time in 12 games — a 1-0 victory over the Seattle Mariners at Nationals Park. In the midst of Washington’s best stretch of baseball since 2005, a contract dispute led to Riggleman’s abrupt departure.
Nationals bench coach John McLaren was named the interim manger, at least for Friday’s game against the White Sox.
| UP NEXT |
| Nationals at White Sox |
| When » Friday, 8:10 p.m. |
| Where » U.S. Cellular Field, Chicago |
| TV » MASN |
Washington general manager Mike Rizzo confirmed that Riggleman asked him before the game for a frank conversation about the organization picking up the one-year option on his contract. Rizzo told the manager he was not ready to have that talk yet. Riggleman said if that position held after the game, then he would not accompany the team on its flight to Chicago for a weekend series against the White Sox.
“If you’re going to do this job, you’ve got to be totally committed to it,” said Riggleman, a Rockville native and a graduate of Richard Montgomery High. “And you have to feel like there’s a commitment to you. I just didn’t feel that way.”
Riggleman’s decision came with his team’s record now at 38-37. The Nats have not had a winning record this late in a season since the second-to-last day of 2005. They just completed an 8-1 homestand and are 16-6 since May 31. But Riggleman later admitted that even if the team continued its stellar play and the organization eventually picked up that one-year option, he still would not have been comfortable. The timing of the decision left Rizzo bewildered. So why wasn’t he willing to deal with Riggleman’s contract status now?
“I wanted to see where the season was going,” Rizzo said. “It hasn’t changed from the spring training speech. It is the same reason and rationale as back then. I wanted to see where our young players were going, how they were being developed and how we were moving forward. Being four weeks before the All-Star Game, I felt it wasn’t the time to make that decision.”
The news rocked the Washington clubhouse, where players filed off the field in a celebratory mood and were immediately met by Rizzo. Starting pitcher Jason Marquis had just pitched eight shutout innings against the Mariners, and the game was scoreless going into the ninth. Back-to-back base hits by Michael Morse and Danny Espinosa set the table. Ivan Rodriguez reached when he bunted and Seattle failed to throw out pinch runner Brian Bixler at third. After a fielder’s choice ground out, Nix won it with his fly ball to left.
“I think we’re still in a good mood,” Marquis said. “Obviously you don’t want something like this to happen when things are going good. But they do. I think we’re all professionals here, and we’ll go [to Chicago] ready to take care of business.”
