Hey great win, Jim! Jim?…. JIM?!

I admit that I haven’t been kind to Jim Riggleman on the pages of Sully Baseball.

I questioned the reasoning of dumping Manny Acta for Riggleman and his less that sterling resume.

And I thought he was doing baseball a disservice when he benched some of his starters in critical stretch run games.

Well now he has the Nats playing on a roll and they have crawled back up to .500.

And what does he do?
He quits.

Now there are already articles being written in his favor and who knows? Maybe the Nationals organization IS a mess.

But I’m sorry. Why should the Nationals offer Riggleman more years? Even with the team above .500 now, he’s been a big league skipper over 12 different seasons. In the 11 ones before this one has a grand total of 2 above .500. He seems like a solid baseball lifer, but does 1 game over .500 before July constitute a lot of leverage?

And with this dramatic series against the Mariners (another team he managed since 2008), you’d think that the Nationals would be trying to ride some momentum.

Instead they have to answer questions about a manager who quit on the team. (Sorry, that’s what he did.)

He said to the media “I’m not Casey Stengel.”

No kidding.

And if the Nationals put up a good record for the rest of the season, it will make the Nationals decision to not retain Riggleman look even smarter.

Don’t worry… he’ll be an interim manager someday. Hey, he’s 22 years younger than the Marlins new manager!

Oh come on! Let Livan finish the game!

Hey Nationals Manager Jim Riggleman, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.
Livan Hernandez was pitching tonight and also hitting quite a bit.

It was a game against Atlanta so it has playoff ramifications for both the Wild Card and the NL East… just not for the Nationals.

The Nats don’t have a lot to play for this year anymore. They are trying to avoid 90 losses and probably will reach that total anyway.

But don’t blame Livan Hernandez. He’s had a nice year (even if the win loss record isn’t sterling) and tonight got an RBI double and a homer and threw 8 shutout innings for the win.

So why didn’t you have him throw the 9th, Riggleman?
Seriously, was getting an inning of work for Sean Burnett so important that you couldn’t let Hernandez get his third complete game of the year?

Don’t you see how awesome the symmetry of that would be?
Livan Hernandez hits an RBI double, a homer and throws a complete game shutout. That is total domination of the opponent.

Instead it is merely a win.
Crazy managers don’t know to humiliate the opponent when they have the chance.

Shame on Jim Riggleman

That’s right Riggleman. You had better hang your head.

You took over the worst team in baseball and they are indeed going to finish this season as one of the worst if not the worst team in the game.

That’s not why you should hang your head.

We are at the end of the season.
The Nationals have only 9 games left.
They’ve already lost 101 games.
Needless to say they don’t have a lot of meaningful games left.

Yet the Nats find themselves in the middle of a pennant race. Maybe not for themselves, but they are playing the Braves 7 out of the last 10 games of the season.

And with the Braves now only 3 back in the loss column for the Wild Card, each one of these games affect Atlanta and Colorado.

They also affect who plays whom in the Division Series. A Braves Wild Card would mean the Dodgers would play Atlanta in the Division Series while the Phillies and Cardinals would face off.

A Rockies Wild Card would mean the Dodgers and Phillies would meet in the Division Series and the Cardinals would go to Colorado.

These games could affect the balance of the NL playoffs.
These games could affect which teams would be resting starters and which ones would be going at full speed in the last week of the season.

So what did Riggleman do today?
He is resting Ryan Zimmerman!

The Nationals are practically fielding a AAA line up and just about the only hitter who could make any difference on his roster is taking a breather… a week before he takes a 5 month break.

Um… WHAT IS HE RESTING FOR?

Shouldn’t he put a lineup on the field that, I don’t know, could beat the Durham Bulls?

In a game that could have a chain reaction affect on the National League playoffs, Riggleman said “You know, now could be the day to give Pete Orr some at bats!”

This is a disgrace and if baseball actually had a commissioner, then he would have been fined.

Hey Rigs!
The Nats play the Mets next week. Those games will be played in front of friends and family and won’t even affect the Nats nor the Mets.

You can send Zimmerman to Bermuda for those games.
How’s about he plays in the games that matter?

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