Nats ax Manny on first day of All-Star break
Manny Acta walked to the back of the Washington Nationals’ team plane late Sunday night for an informal chat with some of his players. He wanted them to know that he still believed in them — even as the losses continued to pile up during another miserable road trip.
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Maybe the playoffs were far out of reach. Maybe a winning season was a pipe dream. But Acta’s message was clear: Take the All-Star break to recharge and come back ready to play when the schedule resumes Thursday. It was vintage Acta — the kind of optimistic pep talk Nats players have come to expect from a man who never lost his cool in public, but still possessed a forceful personality when away from the glare of fans and media.
But less than two hours after the team’s return flight from Houston landed, Acta was gone. The front office finally decided that the promise of a manager who strode the line between old-school and new-school baseball philosophies could not outweigh the disaster of the 2009 season. So Acta was fired around midnight Monday morning and replaced by bench coach Jim Riggleman.
“I just wish we’d played better for him,” said relief pitcher Jason Bergmann, who said goodnight to Acta in the Nats’ locker room in the wee hours Monday morning only to find out about the dismissal minutes later when he returned home and flipped on the television.
Acta was in the midst of his third season as manager for Washington. His first year was notable, as a team widely predicted to lose 100 games or more actually won 73. But injuries decimated his club in 2008 and it finished worst in the league. Despite additions like Adam Dunn and Josh Willingham, things somehow deteriorated even more this season.
“I don’t believe [Acta] was losing players in the clubhouse,” said acting general manager Mike Rizzo, who made the move in conjunction with team president Stan Kasten. “For a while now we kept thinking that this was going to turn around. We were going to start playing better. And we always continued to underachieve, in my opinion. So we thought this was a prudent time to make a move.”
