This morning, the Washington Nationals announced that they have exercised their option to bring Davey Johnson back as manager for the 2012 season.

The Nationals have named an interim manager to replace Jim Riggleman, who abruptly resigned yesterday afternoon due to a contract dispute, in time for today’s game against Chicago — John McLaren is the club’s manager for the time being.

The Nationals crept over .500 with an exciting 1-0 win over the Seattle Mariners this afternoon — but the atmosphere in the clubhouse soured quickly, when manager Jim Riggleman announced his abrupt resignation.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/misschatter/ / CC BY 2.0 The Nationals will be holding a news conference at 2:30 p.m. to officially name their new field manager, but there won’t be any surprises: Jim Riggleman will be returning to manage the team on a permanent basis in 2010. Both ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian and the Associated Press reported last night that Nationals sources confirmed that Riggleman would have his interim tag removed today. Riggleman led the Nats to a somewhat…

Photo by ameschen.It took a little bit longer than expected, but Manny Acta is officially no longer the manager of the Washington Nationals, as first reported by ESPN Deportes and confirmed by the Associated Press. It was certainly time for the Nationals to make the switch: between a downward spiral of poor performances, color commentators (usually some of the game’s biggest cheerleaders) questioning the team’s effort, local media fondly reminiscing about the old manager,…

Photo by randomduck.If you consider yourself a Nationals devotee — or even if you just find constant amusement in the walking joke that the team has become — this column by Mike Wise in today’s Post is a must-read: in it, Wise makes the case that former manager Frank Robinson got an incredibly raw deal when he was forced out at the end of the 2006 season. There’s some fantastic stuff in Wise’s story,…

Photo by Flickr user pjhaveri. Ideally, this column is scheduled to run on Mondays. We held it until today because after this report by Fox Sports, and the Nationals subsequent non-denials, we were certain that Manny Acta was going to be fired yesterday. Well, he wasn’t. It still seems likely that he will be, it is more a matter of when at this point. If it happens before Sunday, you can expect Bethesda Big…