The Los Angeles Angels may not be a good baseball team, but manager Ron Washington is determined to “turn this [expletive] around.”
Sporting a 28-42 record, the Angels are one of the worst teams in MLB. The team's home losses more than double their home wins and the roster the L.A. has rolled out this season has been routinely criticized for its quality or lack thereof. And yet, Washington, at 72 years old, believes he's the man to get the Angels out of the basement of MLB.
While drinking a beer in the Angels' hotel in Phoenix, Washington told USA Today's Bob Nightengale that he left his third-base job with the Atlanta Braves to take the Angels managing position despite reservations from his wife and friends.
“People kept saying how bad the Angels are, and why would you want to go there?” Washington said. “Come on, it’s a big-league job. There are only 30 of these [expletives]. I waited 10 damn years to get back.
“I told everyone, I wasn’t going there because of what they’ve done in the past. I’m going there to create what they’re going to do in the future.”
Washington explained that he would not have accepted the Angels' offer if he thought he could not “make a difference.”
Ron Washington hits back at ‘failure' characterization
Ron Washington is many things, but a “failure” is not one.
“I ain’t no damn failure,” Washington told USA Today's Nightengale. “I’ve never been a failure in my damn life. I might be failing, but I ain’t no failure. There’s a difference.
“I’m going to do what it takes to not fail. I’m not going to let it just keep happening to me and say I’m a failure. [Expletive] that. I’m going to do what I have to do to come out of it.”
Washington said that while it may “take a minute” for the Angels to truly make the turn and begin rising, he believes that success is ultimately inevitable.
“I haven’t had a sleepless night since I took this job,” he said. “This record isn’t anything what I hoped, and we’re not playing like I expect. But we’ve got such a young team. There are nights when we’ve got everyone on the field making the minimum salary.
“But you know what?
“It’s coming. I know it coming.
“We’ll get it done here, and it’s going to be a beautiful damn thing when we’re on top.’’
After the departure of two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani in the offseason, the Angels did not reload and try to surround center fielder Mike Trout (who is having the worst season of his career) with a star-studded team. Instead, the Angels seemed content to round out the roster with low-budget players and limp into Opening Day with a mediocre squad.
Nonetheless, the team has been in the mix of numerous games only to fall just short for the loss, which can be seen as a positive.
“If we play solid baseball, we have a chance,” Washington said. “It’s not like teams are just coming in and waxing our a–. We’ve had opportunities, we just didn’t come through. We’ve been missing that one hit. One base hit.
“We just have to learn how to win. It takes time. It’ll be different next year.”
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