The Rizzo/Martinez era is over in DC, as Nationals principal managing owner Mark Lerner confirmed Sunday evening that he has relieved GM and President of Baseball Operations Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez of their duties.
Assistant GM Mike DeBartolo will be the interim GM for the remainder of this season, and the team will determine an interim manager to replace Martinez on Monday.
“On behalf of our family and the Washington Nationals organization, I first and foremost want to thank Mike and Davey for their contributions to our franchise and our city. Our family is eternally grateful for their years of dedication to the organization, including their roles in bringing a World Series trophy to Washington, D.C.,” Mark Lerner said in an official statement from the team. “While we are appreciative of their past successes, the on-field performance has not been where we or our fans expect it to be. This is a pivotal time for our club, and we believe a fresh approach and new energy is the best course of action for our team moving forward.”
Boston’s win over the Nats Sunday completed a series sweep and dropped Washington to 37-53 for the season, and since improving to 28-30 on May 31, they are 9-23 over the last five weeks – a stretch that included an 11-game losing streak in early-t0-mid-June.
Bittersweet news coming not long after James Wood and MacKenzie Gore - two of the players Rizzo acquired in the Juan Soto trade in 2022 - were named All-Stars, but the team is 325-472 in five-plus seasons since winning the 1029 World Series, and the rebuild that began in 2021-22 with the trades of Soto, Max Scherzer, Trea Turner, and others is on pace to finish with a worse record in 2025 than the back-to-back 71-91 campaigns of 2023-24.
And now, Martinez is gone with a 500-622 record in seven-plus seasons at the helm, and Rizzo exits an organization he joined in July 2006 as an assistant GM, and became interim and then full-time GM in 2009 after Jim Bowden’s resignation.