Wire Taps: Does Davey Martinez survive?; Victor Robles impresses; Nationals reportedly sign Gerardo Parra...

We have officially reached the media hot seat phase of the Davey Martinez tenure, which somehow only took a year and a month. Get excited for this narrative for the rest of the year!

Here’s the news from Los Angeles:

The Nats Need a New Manager. Now. (The Nationals Review)
Forget Dusty. Forget camels; forget cabbage; forget whatever is in your head about the Nationals' manager. Davey Martinez has had his bad luck thus far, but it's hard to look elsewhere when a team projected to win 90 or more games struggles two years in a row to break .500, especially when the bullpen—the part of the team most under the manager's control—struggles and the entire team underperforms. They may save this yet if they relieve Davey Martinez of his duties and bring in someone who can turn things around, though.

Advice for the reeling Nationals: Take a deep breath. Advice for fans: Look away. (WaPo)
Davey Martinez can't quite seem to figure out how to construct his bullpen, given that he has three pitchers with a combined 1.05 ERA and everyone else has allowed 69 earned runs in 69 innings. The rotation can't quite seem to figure out how to string together consistent performances; the lineup doesn't seem to understand the concept of hitting. Most importantly, Martinez (he really doesn't have a preference on Davey vs. Dave!) just doesn't know how to push his team into high gear. Boswell also wants the Nats to finally admit that their medical team failed; that their bullpen plan failed; that their roster revamp has flopped — though he doesn't think there's any manager in waiting that can fix this problem, so the team shouldn't rush into another decision.

Jim Bowden, Mike Rizzo assess blame for Nats’ awful start (WaPo)
The last time the Nationals started this poorly, Stephen Strasburg was not in the organization. Jim Bowden doesn't blame Davey Martinez (who he very much doesn't like), but instead thinks about the injuries and the pitching staff's struggles. Mike Rizzo says that he takes the brunt of the blame for constructing this roster, but really believes that once the team is healthy, production will follow.

Nationals' early-season struggles can be blamed on plenty of issues (Washington Times)
Ownership, general management, managing, and the players themselves all share the blame.

Nationals manager blames pitchers for team's struggles (Yahoo!)
The Nats tried to make it clear: they were sick of being swept in the NLDS. Now, as one of baseball's worst teams with little risk of making the NLDS, let alone keeping things interesting into September, there's some blame to go around, mainly to Davey Martinez, deferred money, Mike Rizzo, and even some of the players — and cleaning house doesn't seem like it'll change much if the same strategy remains.

Lifeless Nationals fall again in Milwaukee, capping a three-game sweep (WaPo)
The game ended in the first inning for the Nats yesterday in trademark 2019 fashion. To reach 90 wins, the Nationals will now have to play at a .603 clip, going 76-50. Yikes.

Nationals ‘progressing toward a deal’ with OF Gerardo Parra (WaPo)
ESPN reports that Parra will join the Nationals in Los Angeles — though it doesn't quite seem clear where he'll fit, other than in Michael A. Taylor or Andrew Stevenson's spots.

Early miscues sink Hellickson, Nats (MLB.com)
“We keep beating ourselves right now,” Martinez said. “We’ve got to come out and just play baseball. We battled back again, but we’ve got to start playing clean baseball, stop giving other teams 30 outs and playing good baseball. If you think about it on the other end, we have 27 outs, [15] of them were strikeouts. We’ve got to start putting the ball in play.”

Victor Robles impressing Dave Martinez, Nationals (MLB.com)
Victor Robles is still missing cutoff men and playing with his hair on fire — but he's improved quite a bit since Opening Day, hitting at a .263 clip and impressing Davey Martinez and company.

Lifeless Nats fall into early hole, get swept for first time (MASN)
The Nationals haven't just lost their last three: they've been pummeled, unable to hit or make basic plays, to get going in any way whatsoever. Adam Eaton swears the team prepares diligently; the results always end up the same, somehow.

You have every reason to be alarmed about the Nationals. Here are my top three (The Athletic)
It's not that early anymore. Even when they get healthy, there's no guarantee whatsoever that they'll start winning. And the bullpen, in case anyone was wondering, is still an atrocity.