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
Just because you can hit, doesn't mean you know how to play winning baseball, ... That's what I'm trying to instill here, and it's not easy to do in the short time I've been here.
I didn't have any choice because I had a short bullpen. If we tied the game up, and I'm out of pitchers, where I have to hit for them -- I only have five guys. That's why I double-switched, to get the most innings out of the guys pitching without running out of pitchers and running out of position players.
The ball kept coming over the heart of the plate. It was supposed to be outside and it caught too much of the plate. He threw a lot of pitches (105) in a short period of time.
I've got a fine system, ... Short of that, you're weakening yourself and the team if you take this guy or that guy out of the lineup.
It got a little hairy there when we had a 3-0 lead and Delgado hit that home run. But that was the only mistake Zambrano made.
I think that's wrong because that way you're placing blame on one department,
Just a sad day on the pitching side.
I said, 'At times,' ... It's not an overall, long, extended, everybody issue. It's at times. There's a difference. If I contradicted myself, I'm sorry. It's at times. You've seen it. I've seen it, too. At times. Those are isolated incidents.
I said, 'Well, maybe you need to read it.
Our guys are busting it every day. We're not getting it done.
We executed that cutoff play perfectly. That was a very athletic play. That ball went into the gap, and it was obvious that they were going to send him. It was a perfect hop, a perfect throw and a perfect tag.
We have some guys that should get keys to the clubhouse because they beat the clubhouse guys here. It's a little bit different, because we've got some hard-working guys. They influence the other guys, and that's a positive effect.
We had him on the hook in the first inning, and then he got that lead and then he started mixing his pitches in better than he did in the first inning. That lead does a lot for you.
We had almost everything today but a stolen base. We managed to score a lot of different ways.