Dusty Baker
Dusty Baker
Johnnie B. "Dusty" Baker, Jr.is an American Major League Baseball manager and former player. He is currently the manager for the Washington Nationals. He enjoyed a 19-year career as a hard-hitting outfielder, primarily with the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers. He helped the Dodgers to pennants in 1977 and 1978 and to the championship in 1981. He then enjoyed a 20-year career as a manager with the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, and now Washington Nationals. He...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth15 June 1949
CityRiverside, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Or maybe before, who knows? It's how he feels. He's not going to go out there and embarrass himself. You can count on that. I'm just glad we got him.
The one outing doesn't necessarily put him in there or delete him from it. He'll have quite a few more outings before we make a decision. We'll evaluate him on his progress. He said he learned from it and it won't happen again. He was upset at himself at how he pitched.
This guy is in great shape -- this is the best shape I've seen him in. Our trainers went down and checked on him. They saw him this winter. He's doing pretty good. He hasn't played baseball for awhile so we still have to break him in slowly.
They're still going to follow us here. We just kind of messed that game up tonight.
They've done a great job of not only him pitching well there but getting ready for us, too, which they promised us they would do.
They say you come to the ballpark and you'll see something you haven't seen, and I haven't seen that before when you hit the guy on the helmet with a double-play ball. They get a run out of that and another run on the two-out base hit.
They say come to the ballpark and you'll see something you haven't seen before. I haven't seen that before, you hit a guy in the helmet on the double-play ball.
A lot of it depends on the strength of your starting pitching. If your starting pitching is good, you won't need 12 too much. Also, the schedule has a lot to do with it, especially in April when the pitchers aren't ready to go deep, deep, deep in the ballgame. You don't even know at that time if you'll need five starters. You might only need four. You hate to lose that guy's endurance by not pitching. It'll work itself out by the time we get ready to leave.
A lot of times, guys get older and they're so financially secure and they have records and stuff, you could easily lose a little competitive desire. But he hasn't lost any.
A lot of these things you shouldn't have to stress at the big-league level. That's what big leagues mean.
A lot of these guys come from other organizations where certain things are stressed differently,
They are both throwing the ball good. It's just a matter of location most of the time. I'm confident it will come. They've pitched well in the past, so why wouldn't they pitch well in the present and future? I'm not too worried. You want them to be in great form right now, but we do have some time. They have a couple of starts left.
You don't want to do all this hard work all through Spring Training and during the season and then come out here with nothing to be proud of.
You don't want him to get hit on the wrist or elbow.