The Nationals are falling apart as Tuesday’s trade deadline approaches.
Many of the team’s players feel like first-year manager Dave Martinez is too preoccupied with forging relationships with his star players, including Bryce Harper, Yahoo Sports reported. The report comes as calls to trade Harper, who will be a free agent after this season, for prospects grow louder.
“The clubhouse is a mess,” a source told Yahoo Sports.
Harper said the Nationals wouldn’t have lost their game against the Marlins on Saturday if they had traded for J.T. Realmuto, who hit a walk-off single.
It appeared to be a thinly veiled criticism of the Nationals front office — and the players they’re fielding.
“If that guy was on our side, that wouldn’t have happened,” Harper told reporters after that game. “Tough luck.”
That wasn’t the only controversy the Nationals have run into in recent weeks. Ace pitchers Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg got into a heated dispute in the middle of an 8-5 loss to the Braves. Strasburg had just returned to the dugout after giving up six runs in 4 2/3 innings after a stint on the 10-day disabled list.
The duo left the dugout and provided no additional clarification over what the dispute was over.
“It’s part of the family, man,” Scherzer told reporters at the time. “You got to be in the family.”
Shortstop Trea Turner, who apologized on Sunday for offensive tweets that resurfaced, was criticized for not even attempting to run to first base after a bunt didn’t go down as he had hoped last week.
Earlier this month, Scherzer called a players-only meeting in which he yelled at the team over its performance, according to the Washington Post. But that meeting, organized by veterans, raised even more questions about Martinez, who is the Nationals’ fifth manager in eight years.
The Nationals now find themselves in third place in the NL East at 52-53, six games behind the Phillies and 4 1/2 games behind the Braves — two young teams with potential to slip in the standings in the season’s final two months. They’re also six games back in the wild card, which they believe might be enough leeway to let them back in the playoff race, according to the Yahoo Sports report.
Though the Nationals have never won a playoff series, they’ve been largely successful during the regular season in recent years. They finished 97-65 last year with much of the same roster.
Washington reportedly remains hopeful that it will be able to sign Harper to a long-term contract at the end of the season, which could temper any desire to trade him. But if Harper’s recent comments are any indication, he might be looking to cash out elsewhere.
