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
They're playing hard, we just didn't play good defense. You can't give runs away in the major leagues, even at the end of the season. You have to play to win every day, and our defense didn't do that.
They're playing hard. Corey circled the ball and missed and, like I said, we just played bad defense today.
They're avoiding him because he can hit you out of the ballpark. It doesn't have to do with anything but that. That's it. I don't believe any manager would let personal feelings - no matter how they feel - get in the way. They're trying to win games.
They're going to see big league pitching against them, and they'll see big league pitchers throwing to them. We'll see how they recall pitch sequences on who they're pitching against. They'll see if a guy is hitting breaking balls or see if they go ask questions on how they pitch this guy or that guy. Does a guy hit this -- what are his strengths or weaknesses. They have to pay attention because they're big in this equation.
They're externally humble but internally very confident, ... He does everything easy, kind of slow-moving but at a high rate of speed.
They have so many powerful left-handed hitters. Overall, it was a good job (by the staff).
There's always speculation about guys on every team. You say, 'Man, this guy looks bigger. But you don't know. And there are some guys who flunked steroid tests, and you had no idea. You see the guys and say, 'No way this guy was on something.' You don't know until somebody is busted.
The more times you come through, the more times you think you're going to come through. We like to see him come up with runners on base. He has a way of getting hits at the right time.
Back in our day, they called this 'salary drive,' ... Try and continue to have a good year and win as many games as you can win. You are playing for respectability right now. What I'm looking for is you play hard and play for love of the game and respect and try to finish as high as you can.
As long as Hank doesn't mind, I don't mind.
That's what you want, to be better than .500 on the road. That's usually the toughest part of the equation, but we didn't play well at home.
That's not overrated. One thing's for sure. Good hitting really beats bad pitching. You can count on that one.
That's not only bad for baseball, it's not good for him either,
That one inning when Will came in, he got two outs, nobody on base and then he walked a couple guys, and you can't walk guys late,