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Manager Matt Williams isn’t the only one to blame for Nationals’ mess

In a world governed by rigidity, titles matter. There is comfort in the duty of an assignment and the name that goes along with it. So in Matt Williams’ sphere of the universe, where a closer exists only to close games, the extrapolation of such a philosophy unearths two questions he ought ask himself: What good is a manager if he can’t be bothered to manage games, and, even more, what’s the point of having a general manager like Mike Rizzo, who would rather serve as an enabler than someone who will hold accountable the manager that struggles to manage?

While a Washington Nationals victory Wednesday night stanched the wound of two disastrous losses the previous two nights that trained focus on Williams’ inability to properly manage a bullpen, it did nothing to make up the 6½-game deficit Washington faces, some of which, surely, is owed to Williams’ blundering. During a radio appearance with D.C. radio station WJFK-FM on Wednesday morning, Williams used the following logic to rationalize keeping closer Jonathan Papelbon on the bench for the previous two nights in games blown by lesser relievers: “He’s our closer. He’s the one that closes games.”

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It is unclear whether Williams heard that chestnut on his Walkman, saw it on his UHF antenna or found it via his 28.8 connection on AOL. What’s evident is that Williams never bothered to learn from the mistake he made in an elimination game last postseason, when the Nationals’ October ended with Stephen Strasburg, Tyler Clippard and then-closer Drew Storen watching the meltdown from about 300 feet away.

Matt Williams, left, taking the ball from starter Gio Gonzalez, has struggled to manage his bullpen. (Getty)
Matt Williams, left, taking the ball from starter Gio Gonzalez, has struggled to manage his bullpen. (Getty)

And as much as one wants to blame Williams for that – and Washington descended with the sort of fury typically reserved for the Redskins and Wizards and Capitals and … when did the nation’s capital turn into an oversized Cleveland? – he is far from alone. Because Rizzo, in many ways a strong GM, is allowing Williams to play the heel to his Achilles.

Now, it can be noble for a GM to stand up for his manager in public like Rizzo has all season and did again Wednesday, when he told WJFK-FM that Williams had done “a masterful job” Tuesday night and that he “pushed all the right buttons.” If Rizzo received a text from Williams following Tuesday’s loss that said, “I apologize for making the same mistake I’ve been making again and again in my two years here,” then, yes, Williams did push the right buttons, especially if he managed to avoid an autocorrect mishap.

Otherwise, to deem what Williams did in the game as “masterful” is so hyperbolic, so unnecessarily sanguine that it brings into question Rizzo’s thought process and whether he, too, lives in the Mesozoic Era. Williams’ philosophy, one apparently espoused by Rizzo as well, holds that a closer does not pitch on the road unless his team owns a lead. The idea is that as long as the home team bats last, Williams wants to save his best bullet.

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While managers adhere to it most of the time, enough straight-up ignore the convention that it’s becoming less and less a hard-and-fast rule. Twice this year New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi used Andrew Miller in the bottom of an inning during a tie game – and that was after his other star reliever, Dellin Betances, had been used. Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle brought in Mark Melancon, the major league saves leader, three times in the bottom of the 10th during a tie game and once in the ninth. San Francisco’s Bruce Bochy used Santiago Casilla twice in the 10th, and Cleveland’s Terry Francona did the same with Cody Allen. Baltimore’s Buck Showalter and ex-San Diego manager Bud Black used their closers, All-Stars Zach Britton and Craig Kimbrel, as true firemen, bringing them in mid-inning during tie games with runners on base to douse the damage.

It’s not like it takes a veteran with gravitas to do it, of course. Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash, a rookie manager, is the king of tie-game closer usage. Brad Boxberger has pitched four times in the bottom of the 10th in a tie game and three more in the bottom of the ninth. Paul Molitor, another rookie manager, used Glen Perkins in the bottom of the eighth, 10th and 11th innings in tie games. Even St. Louis manager Mike Matheny has summoned Trevor Rosenthal in multiple such situations, which stood in diametric opposition to his position last October.

Matheny evolved, and whether it was at the behest of those around him or of his own volition, he recognized that stubbornness is a disease, nothing is more stubborn than dogma and nothing in baseball is more dogmatic than rote bullpen usage. And if Williams this offseason couldn’t recognize that and take it upon himself to fix it, it was Rizzo’s responsibility to sit him down in spring training and let him know that in a year the Nationals expected to win a World Series, he couldn’t manage with the same paint-by-numbers approach he brought to his first season.

Last season, Kansas City manager Ned Yost looked just like Williams, a manager whose strategic buffoonery might cost his team a playoff spot. Toward the end of the season, Yost’s tactics grew to fit the moment. He listened to his pitching coach, Dave Eiland, and his right-hand men, coaches Dale Sveum and Pedro Grifol and Don Wakamatsu. Hard-head Ned disappeared, and the Royals have been the best team in the American League since.

Nationals GM Mike Rizzo hasn't helped his skipper become a better manager. (AP)
Nationals GM Mike Rizzo hasn't helped his skipper become a better manager. (AP)

Every day edges closer to being too late for Williams. At any point this season, Rizzo could have sat down with Williams or urged bench coach Randy Knorr and pitching coach Steve McCatty to help paper over the manager’s flaws. And however hard Rizzo tries to argue on behalf of Williams, the lack of urgency shown over the last month is the most damning indictment in a tenure marked with questionable in-game calls.

As the Nationals’ devolved from World Series favorites to a barely .500 mess that can’t be bothered to dispatch the Mets – the Mets! – Williams’ allies argued that Washington’s injuries had more to do with its disappointment than any strategic errors. And to that, Matheny would point to the long disabled-list stays of Adam Wainwright, Matt Holliday and Matt Adams, and then his team’s 86-47 record. Injuries happen. Not deploying your best resources in two gotta-have-’em games, on the other hand, is a choice.

Now comes the hardest part for Williams: Finding some way to take a group of players who have increasingly tuned him out, according to sources with knowledge of the clubhouse dynamics, and rescue it from its deficit. It’s a lot to ask of a manager, almost certainly too much, especially if the gluteal tightness that forced Bryce Harper from Wednesday’s game is at all serious.

Unless Williams sees this as a reckoning – and considering his boss says he’s masterful, why would he? – he will operate according to the bootleg protocol he defined and his boss enabled. Short of a stunning comeback to capture the NL East or the second wild card, which they trail by eight games, this offseason could get ugly. Reports indicated that Nationals ownership spoke with Dave Dombrowski about taking charge of personnel before Boston made him president of baseball operations. What that portends for Rizzo is unclear.

For all his good – the drafting of Harper and Strasburg and Lucas Giolito, and the big-ticket free agent signings, and the trade for Joe Ross and Trea Turner – Rizzo handcuffed himself to Williams, and that’s a dangerous place to be. Because however much titles seem to drive Matt Williams’ world, the only one that matters – a World Series title – is today but a fleeting dream.

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