I've always said Dusty is a good regular season guy but a huge choker in the playoffs and I was proven right again because Dusty can't help but freak crap up. If Ted Lerner is happy with just making the playoffs, Dusty is a great choice. If he wants to win a title, then he should have hired someone else.
Playing Turner from July and not from the beginning of the season was a huge mistake. That one might be on Rizzo, but I remember Dusty saying he thought Turner had a weak arm which is a bogus excuse. And then playing Turner at CF was a bigger mistake. Dusty moved him back and forth and while Turner sucks at balls hit over his head, he should have had never moved to the infield if that was the plan. Turner clearly needed more experience playing in the outfield and didn't get it. That's on Dusty.
Several pitchers such as Ross, Rivero, and Solis got used a lot then ended up on the DL. Dusty didn't drive some into the ground with extreme overuse, but he did overuse guys at times and some got hurt because of it. I would have liked max to throw one less inning here and there when games where in hand. It looked like he wore down the stretch.
I can't wait for the Dusty era to end. I am not happy with a manager that is a bad playoff manager. I know Dusty wanted to stagger his lineup, but was Werth really a legit 3rd batter? And Harper batting 2nd? Dusty was very slow in the regular season to move guys up and down the order then the playoffs rolls around and makes wholesale dumb choices.
Nats fans deserve better than this. It's too bad that Ted Lerner has shown a preference for over the hill managers who don't command big salaries because he doesn't value a good manager. The Lerner/Tannenbaum families need to be more hands off and let the baseball people do their jobs and stop being cheap when it comes to the nats. There's people in the organization that complain about how cheap they are and it reminds me of how the cleveland browns are.
