All right. Joining us right now, as promised, Mark Zuckerman, who's been covering this team for a long

period of time, a big part of Mike Rizzo's tenure for sure in Davy Martinez's entire tenure. Mark

can be followed on X on Twitter at Mark Zuckerman. He follows and covers and reports on the team

for mass and Sports and also

has a Nats chat podcast, which you can find anywhere you get a podcast with our good friend

Al Galdi. So first question is, this seemed like it was a possibility a few weeks ago

during the 11 game losing streak. Why now?

You know, I think that we know you've followed the learners long enough to know that they don't really make spur of the moment decisions.

They drag things out. So my guess is that the process probably started back then,

and they didn't go through with it at the time,

but probably had it on their mind

and wanted to see how these next few weeks went.

They played better on the road trip,

and they actually just won two out of three against the Tigers,

a very good team.

And then the Red Sox series this weekend, the first two games, they get blown out.

And I'm going to, I feel pretty comfortable saying they probably had made the decision before yesterday's game.

I don't think it was a reaction to the loss yesterday.

I think they just got to a point that said, this hasn't been good enough.

And, you know, both Martinez and Rizzo had contract options that had to be picked up at some

point this month.

They probably had come to the conclusion that they weren't going to do that.

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