In what has been an absolute whirlwind last 24 hours or so as the Washington Nationals have dominated headlines across the sports landscape, the team has officially turned over a new leaf. Following the firings of longtime General Manager and President of Baseball Operations Mike Rizzo, and manager Dave Martinez on Sunday, the club has officially named the new leader for the rest of the season.
While it was announced by the Lerner family yesterday that Mike DeBartolo, who has been in the organization since 2012 and was a long time assistant to Rizzo, would be taking over as the interim GM, the team said they would name Martinez' replacement on Monday.
Fast forward not even 24 hours, and the Nationals have a new skipper with the interim tag in former bench coach and close friend of Martinez in Miguel Cairo. He was thought of as the logical replacement, and he does have some experience as a lead skipper.
Back in 2022, when Cairo was still with the Chicago White Sox, he performed well on an interim basis, going 18-16 in 34 games, and the team will hope that Cairo takes this opportunity and runs with it as a sort of prolonged audition to get his interim tag removed after the season. While him being the long-term replacement beyond this season still seems like a stretch, there's always a chance that the team could respond well to him.
Cairo is in his second season with the Nationals following a productive playing career that lasted about 17 years, and has been on the coaching side of things since 2020. Cairo has been a bit of a fast riser and was a close friend and assistant to Martinez, and the Nationals will hope he can help right the ship at least a little bit similar to the way that interim manager Don Kelly has been able to turn the Pittsburgh Pirates into a semi-competent ballclub since firing their previous manager, Derek Shelton.
The hope among Nationals fans everywhere is that the team can at least begin to look more competent on the field, as during their series against the Boston Red Sox, the team showed off all of their various issues. Whether it has been baserunning, poor fielding, bad situational hitting, or playing with a perceived lack of energy, the team has not looked great for the vast majority of the last 2 months, outside of an outlier series victory against the Detroit Tigers.
Of course, James Wood, MacKenzie Gore, CJ Abrams, and others have been great, but overall the team has vastly underperformed for the majority of this season, and hopefully Cairo can help to turn things around.
What do you think of Miguel Cairo getting the nod as the interim skipper? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.