It seemed the Washington Nationals and General Manager Mike Rizzo cleaned up the Jim Riggleman resigning mess with focus and speed this weekend. After Riggleman quit on the team on Thursday, Rizzo was quick to name John McLaren interim manager in only hours time and Friday night it was all, but signed and done that special assistant to the team Davey Johnson would be named manager through 2013, starting on Monday. Information from new reports say the Nationals mess is not cleaned up just yet.
In another strange twist to this baseball drama McLaren the interim manager is planning to resign after the Nationals make the announcement that Johnson will be taking over. It seems McLaren is close to manager Lou Piniella who is a "rival" of Johnson. This strange loyalty coupled to McLaren's loyalty to Riggleman is enough to make him too walk out on the team.
While this will be just something more for the Nationals Front Office to deal with, losing a bench coach is not as extreme as losing a manager and Rizzo will no doubt be quick to either hire a bench coach from the outside or promote from within the organization.
Rumor has it the Nationals will name Davey Johnson Washington Nationals manager sometime Saturday night, but they are still ironing out the details.