The Washington Nationals have fired pitching coach Derek Lilliquist.

The Nationals have promoted minor league pitching coordinator Paul Menhart to replace Lilliquist.

"We felt that both the rotation and the bullpen, we thought that we had some flaws in there," Mike Rizzo said. "We thought that there [were] preparation issues in there, and we thought that we wanted to get a new message and a new voice."

The Nationals are 13-17 after a victory on Thursday.

Despite having Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin in their rotation, Washington entered Thursday with a 4.95 ERA that ranked 13th out of 15 NL teams.