Martinez pleased Rizzo endorses new contract for skipper

Now with Mike Rizzo in the fold for at least three more seasons, the general manager said he wants to get a new deal done for his World Series-winning manager, Davey Martinez.

The skipper confirmed that Rizzo had come to him saying he will see if he can work with the Lerner family on going further than the club option in Martinez's contract for 2021 and just build a whole new deal.

"He did mention something to me last night," Martinez said during the postgame Zoom video session with reporters. "I told him, obviously I love it here. I love working with Rizzo. Being a part of this organization means a lot to me and my family. If we can get something done, it'd be awesome. I want to be here.

"I think we have a bright future here, especially with some of our young players and some of the starting pitchers we got right now. I'm excited about it. We got a long way to go this year, so, as always, I try to focus on tomorrow and then if something happens I'll be really excited about it."

It would be interesting to see if Martinez can get a new contract of more than two seasons. The players and coaches love Martinez, and a big part of why the clubhouse is a cohesive unit, has belief in itself, stays together and works well together is because of the atmosphere and "circle of trust" Martinez has built over the last 2 1/2 seasons.

* The Nationals allowed 12 homers in four games against the Braves over the weekend in Atlanta. For the season, the Nationals have allowed 64 home runs, third worst in the major leagues. Martinez has a solution to slow that trend.

"It's all about making pitches when it counts," Martinez said. "We have left a lot of balls in the middle of the strike zone. When I go back and watch games, we are not finishing our pitches, especially when we are ahead.

"The other thing is we got to do a better job of pitching in. I think we are, like, 27th or 28th overall of pitching in, which is not good. I have said this before: We got to move guys' feet. Because you want to have the outside of the plate. You want hitters to come to the outside of the plate. When you don't move anybody's feet, guys could stay in there. This is just part of baseball. You got to work two sides of the plate. You got to utilize both sides of the plate. I really feel like we got to do a better job of pitching in.

"(Patrick) Corbin threw a couple balls in (Sunday) and froze hitters, and I think that is awesome. As a whole, we really got to start focusing on throwing more balls inside, so this way you could have part of the outside of the plate to deal with."

* Broadcast reports last night revealed that the reason Rizzo was ejected from a luxury box three levels up during the seventh inning of yesterday's game at Truist Park was because he was not wearing a mask. Umpire Joe West and his crew gestured and yelled up to the luxury suite where Rizzo was watching the game during Eric Thames' at-bat. On the Braves' TV feed, audio could be heard coming from the umpires saying "You're out," "Call security" and "We will wait." It was not clear during the game if the umpires were referring to Rizzo, and Rizzo stayed in the box for an inning or so after the incident.