Manny Acta isn't good at his job

Manny Acta isn't good at his job. Furthermore, he appears to be unwilling to accept responsibility for the decisions he makes (decisions which culminated in a mind-blowing loss to the Phillies on Monday night), instead putting it all on the collective back of a pitching staff that was asked to do something that it wasn't physically capable of doing. Acta after the game:

I hope I don't wear out this word, but, again, it was deflating... Our offense just battled all day and scored enough runs. We played so hard for eight innings to score enough runs. You lose the game in one inning, it's just tough for the whole team.

First of all, the idea that the game was lost in one inning is preposterous, and speaks to Acta's flawed decision-making process. But I'll delve more into the chronology and consequences of said process later.

The Nationals' bullpen has come under a lot of fire in recent weeks for their incompetence, and I have no problem with coaches calling out specific players or groups of players if the situation warrants such measure. But it does grate on me when a coach comes down on a player for failing to do something he is physically unable to do (or unlikely to do, more probably), especially when the coach failed in the first place to put his players in position to optimize their performance.

I went into considerable detail about how I think a manager should handle the Phillies line-up in high-leverage situations after the Braves narrowly escaped blowing a lead against them during the first game of the season. Why any manager would leave a right-handed pitcher in against Ryan Howard in a situation where a lot of runs could be put on the board is completely beyond me.

Let's revisit Ryan Howard's career triple slash splits:

Facing LHPs: .231/.315/.468
Facing RHPs: .305/.412/.652

That's a no doubt Hall-of-Famer against one type of pitcher and someone who probably doesn't belong on a major league line-up against the other. Even so, Acta let righty Shairon Martis (who?), of all people, face Howard with the bases loaded and the tying run at the plate in the fifth inning. It's not like he left Pedro in to face Howard - no, we're talking about Shairon [expletive deleted] Martis. The rationale? Probably that Martis was only 2 outs away from being the pitcher of record. Ah, the things managers do to chase meaningless statistics. In case you were wondering, the result was a game-tying grand slam.

Fool me once...

Later in the game, Acta brought RHP Joel Hanrahan into the game in the eighth inning to pursue another meaningless statistic - saves. Hanrahan was charged with the task of recording the last out in the eighth inning with a two run lead and Ryan Howard at the plate and Chase Utley on first. Now, Acta had already used his lone bullpen lefty, Mike Hinckley, earlier in the game. However, that fact does not absolve Acta of the mistake he committed when he travelled to Philadelphia with only one LHP in the bullpen. Heck, bringing in Scott Olsen in this situation would have been a better idea.

The result this time was no less ugly: Howard walked, Werth walked, Ibanez hit a grand slam (Ibanez has the same problem with lefties that Howard has, though less pronounced).

Acta, noble soul that he is, put it all on Hanrahan, demoting him to middle relief. This decision represents a failure to realize that Hanrahan is his best relief pitcher and a failure to accept responsibility for putting Hanrahan in a situation in which he had a low probability of succeeding.

Because Manny Acta has a chronic habit of putting his players in these types of situations, he is not good at his job and should be divorced of it forthwith.