Message #472217

[sportsfan882]

Q: Jim, what did you say to your players tonight?

RIGGLEMAN: The gist of what I said -- you pick up the paper, you hear things, and a lot of comments get started with, 'The worst team in baseball, the Washington Nationals.' And you know, we're not the worst team in baseball. Unfortunately you are whatever your record says you are, but we've got a good ballclub. And this good ballclub just found ways tonight to shoot ourselves in the foot and lose a ballgame, which adds to the record, the negativity, and allows people to write those things. For me, our record does not indicate the quality of the ballclub we have. The score of that ballgame did not indicate the ballgame that was; that game was 2-0 for a long time, and now it ends up 6-1 and it looks like the worst team in baseball again. So I'm just reminding our players, when you make that many mistakes in a ballgame you are going to allow those things to be said, and we've got to be accountable for that... Tonight, we legitimately made a lot of mistakes, and it starts with me and the staff. If our players are making those kinds of mistakes then we've got to make sure we're coaching them better, managing them better, to not make those mistakes. Because that was a lot of bad things happening in that ballgame that we cannot allow to continue to happen.

Q: What were the mistakes in particular that bothered you?

RIGGLEMAN: We were bunting when we weren't supposed to be bunting. Balls in the air, we were doubled up a couple times. We were trying to turn a double play we can't turn. You know, just things that we just can't do. If we're gonna be a better ballclub, we just can't do those things.