PHILADELPHIA -- Davey Martinez threw his water-logged red sweatshirt aside as soon as he entered the visiting manager’s office postgame Sunday. Rain pelted Citizens Bank Park throughout the day as expected. Martinez stood in the dugout with it being blown in his face all afternoon. That was not expected.

The forecast suggested little chance for Sunday’s game to be played. But Washington’s punchless lineup was too enticing for Philadelphia to reschedule. How unimposing was the offensive nine? Kurt Suzuki hit cleanup. Asked afterward about a beleaguered ensemble forced into a scenario where he hit fourth, he declined to give his thoughts. “I’m not going to say that on air.”

That’s the first reality at the end of another rough week. Washington is beat up. Juan Soto, Anthony Rendon, Trea Turner, Ryan Zimmerman, Matt Adams, Trevor Rosenthal and Austen Williams are all on the injured list. The only infield starter who remains is Brian Dozier.

He’s hitting .186.

Another reality is a staff member -- former pitching coach Derek Lilliquist -- was fired Thursday before the team’s travel buses rumbled to Philadelphia. He did not agree with the decision. The team cited questionable preparation as the reason for change. Yet, Lilliquist’s absence made no difference over the weekend during the close of a 2-5 week which concluded with the club stranded in Philadelphia because of aircraft engine trouble. They spent hours on the plane, but never took off. Take that metaphor as you will.

All of this dials back to the manager. As heat throughout the week grew, so did questions about his future once a second consecutive rough April concluded and included familiar themes. The play wasn’t always the cleanest. The parts didn’t often work well as a sum. Dismissing a staff member, as much as it personally troubled the affable Martinez to be on board with sending out a friend, was a foundational shot. There’s a line of succession -- or ejection -- often in sync with such a change. The manager, in general, is next if another move is deemed necessary. That won’t be happening any time soon for the Nationals.

Irritation around the clubhouse is pointed more toward injuries and subpar play than Martinez. Zimmerman’s plantar fasciitis problem had him rolling his eyes last week. Turner’s broken left finger troubled him in two areas: he couldn’t play baseball and it derailed his video game participation until he learned to temporarily play with his left hand. Soto’s spastic lower back made him grumpy, as did the decision to put him on the injured list. Adams was injured through an effort play. A pitch hit Rendon. None of these things fall at the feet of the manager.

However, those who play are his responsibility. Injuries are the norm. Not a heaving pile of them like this, but they occur throughout the season. What happens afterward becomes a measure of the team’s ambition. Nothing is easy. It’s instead as hard as possible. Lineups with a light-hitting catcher batting fourth need to find a way to win. The manager needs to find a way to win. If not, eventually, change comes. In Washington, the manager can be removed even when he does win. Ask Dusty Baker.

So, the injuries delivered a dual undercurrent around the team: Washington believes it has a good chance to leap forward when those players return; if the roster lacks depth, that’s not the manager’s fault. The former is debatable; the latter Mike Rizzo’s responsibility.

Also in the equation is the Lerner family. They took the rare step of giving Martinez a three-year contract worth $2.8 million with an option. He’s midway through, making cost a consideration for an ownership group which does not like to spend extra money on managers because it views the position more as interchangeable holding place than paramount investment.

None of that means Martinez is without error. All of it is -- or should be -- dumped into any conversation about where he is right or wrong, what his ultimate future is and how much of the responsibility currently rests with him when it comes to an underachieving $196 million payroll initially constructed and annually commanded to pursue the World Series.

“We’ve started to get this question a bunch over the last week or so,” Sean Doolittle told NBC Sports Washington. “And I know you guys have jobs to do, but I think at the end of the day, the manager sometimes gets a little too much blame in some situations. Especially when it pertains to the starts we’ve gotten off to. We knew last year coming in we weren’t at full strength. This year, we’re missing four of our eight every day players right now and it’s been kind of tough having the continuity you need coming out of the gates to put our best foot forward. There’s only so much the manager can do when it comes to keeping guys healthy.

“We’re aware of [outside consternation], but I promise you that stuff’s not seeping into the clubhouse. We’re not...It’s been a frustrating start to the season, but the clubhouse, the chemistry, it’s still really good. It’s not something where we’re pointing fingers or anything like that. We do feel like we’re still really in this together. Even though -- as bad as things have gone -- we’re still very much in the thick of things.”

To a degree. The Nationals are five games out in what is shaping up to be a single-playoff-team division. But, only two National League teams enter play Monday with a worse winning percentage -- Miami and Cincinnati. Which puts a pile of opposition in front of them for any postseason spot.

And Washington’s path to such a malodorous state is filled with the hallmarks of a mediocre team. When one aspect plays well, another doesn’t. The group is rarely synced. Injuries don’t help. But, this issue existed before the injured list bloated, back at the start of the season when poor performance and questionable decisions bore the weight in losses. It’s also a fair place to consider the manager. Doolittle independently pointed out they are yet to jell -- the hitting, pitching and defense all spotty at one time or another. True. So, aren’t such disconnects the responsibility of leadership?

“That’s tough to answer,” Doolittle told NBC Sports Washington. “I’ll leave that to you guys. I don’t feel like that’s the been case because there was such a different tone in spring training this year with attention being paid to that stuff because those were mistakes we made last year. I think we took a much more business-like approach in spring training and paid a lot closer attention to those things. So, I don’t know what else he could have done to prepare.

“But, at some point, too, we have to start playing better. It goes both ways. That’s kind of like -- any time a staff member gets fired, it’s such a wakeup call because regardless of what direction the organization wanted to go moving forward or what the manager thought, at the end of the day, if we pitch better, if you’re playing better, that doesn’t happen. When it comes to that stuff, he can only do so much. He can only lead so much. At some point we have start playing like we’re capable of on a more consistent basis.”

The last line echoed in the clubhouse. Brian Dozier backed Martinez, twice circling around to his own play not being sufficient, then suggesting others felt the same. Max Scherzer turned questions around and asked: Who is making more winning plays this season?

The Nationals or the opposition? A 14-19 record provides a clear answer.

The natural follow to Scherzer’s counter is the question of responsibility. A missed postseason in year one; a second brutish April in year two; a disjointed team desperate to merely hang around at the start of May which has already fired a pitching coach. Is that a foreboding wave for the club and the manager?

“If you get caught up in kind of that train of thought, you go down a negative path really quick,” Scherzer said. “It's real easy to go down that rabbit hole for everybody involved. Fans, players, everybody. To start thinking the what-ifs, the bad scenarios, all the negative things we can all come up with. You just CAN'T do that. If you want to be a winning baseball player, a winning baseball team you just can't do that. You've got to trick your mind into other things. You've just got to find a way.”

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