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
Ain't nothing on hold. These games are going to go on regardless. They're going to go into the record, wins and losses, regardless. You wish you could stop time, but I'm looking at that clock and that second hand's still ticking.
You're teaching at the big-league level, but you can't teach them until they make mistakes because you don't know what they don't know, ... It's not like they have a 'Baseball 101' manual that everyone studies.
You're playing against guys who are younger than you, so you can set them up. You get to a certain point in your career and you almost know what's coming. You learn to trust your feelings. Hank Aaron told me you don't become a great player until you learn to trust your feelings.
Zambrano threw a heck of a game. I tried to let him get his 15th (win). We just played a good game, an outstanding game. Pettitte threw a good game, and it was all knotted up. Michael B. (Barrett) got a clutch, clutch hit.
(Zambrano) struggled early. He made a couple young mistakes. I guess that comes with young players. He started working his breaking ball and had them off-balance. In the sixth and seventh, he probably had his best stuff. Fortunately, we got a couple runs in the top of the seventh.
You would think over the course of a winter -- actually three winters, two winters -- that guys would come back strong and healthy, which hasn't been the case. Woody had a little setback with his knee, but his arm is doing well. He's throwing the ball great. Hopefully, Woody will be ready soon. How soon we don't know. We have Wade Miller coming on pretty strong. We just have to pull our belts a little tighter and do what we have to do.
You want mystique or you want wins? Mystique will be here. The structure is the same. I'm more concerned about wins.
You want mystique or you want wins? Know what I mean? ... Mystique's still here because the structure's the same. I'm more concerned about wins.
You want him to go out and pitch the way he has pitched before.
You've just got to play smart when something is wrong. You still play hard. What you don't want to happen is altering his swing and creating bad habits. As far as how many at-bats down here, it depends on how he feels.
You've just got to give Roger credit today for holding us.
You've got to throw strikes. That's with most young guys. Throw strikes, throw quality strikes. Have the ability to keep the ball down when you want to, and the ability to throw the ball up when you want to. When you throw the ball outside, you don't want it to creep back inside. The main thing is just relax. Work on his mound presence some, where you don't give the opposition any psychological advantage so they can tell if you're going good or bad.
You still play hard, which is the only way he knows how to play. But you just make sure you play smart along with it.
You still have to have the punch to hit a three-run homer when you need it.