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
At this point, we're grooming him as a starter. That's why we got him. It's not like we have a surplus of starters.
That's a good time to talk to people. They're usually loose.
That's a real good sign. It shows the kind of guys we have here.
The last few days, we haven't been as sharp. Baseball players aren't used to getting up at 5, 6 o'clock every morning. You have one day off in six weeks, that's a pretty good grind.
The last couple weeks, he has really progressed. It's impossible to predict a rehab. You can't rush him, or he will be in-and-out, in-and-out. Hopefully, it's not too long.
The last couple days Michael has come up with some heroics.
I just told him, 'Good luck.' He's going to try to do the best for us and the best for our country.
I love that. Especially when you have veteran guys at the back of the bullpen.
I'll talk to them all together and come up with something before we leave from here. This is a team thing. It's not an individual thing. That's how I'll treat it, as a team thing.
I'll just take the same. Everybody asked if last year was a career year. I don't believe in career years. Once you do it once and find your formula, you should be able to do similar. He knows what he's doing now. He has an idea. He knows how to make adjustments quickly. He's very consistent. He recognizes very quickly what the opposition is trying to do to him and he knows his own limitations.
I'll use the DH as long as I can until the end of spring, when the pitchers will be going far enough to hit. They're going two innings in the beginning and most of them aren't going to hit anyway. Once they get going four, five innings, I'll start using the pitchers. Initially, I'll try to DH whenever I can to get guys at-bats.
I'll think about it when the time comes. My thing is if I can keep it simple, don't distract my team, and if the team wins, everything else takes care of itself.
I know exactly where he's coming from. I continue to work on it myself.
I hope not. I love having him here. He's part of all this.