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
We're not taking anything away from the young guys, but early spring is for the young. I said the other day, the young hit fastballs now, but they hit two breaking balls out. Those weren't quality breaking balls, but you've got to hit those if you are going to hit. I've got to give them some props for not missing them.
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.
(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.
He's kind of in no-man's land a little bit. He's early on breaking stuff and late on fastballs. Jim Edmonds is probably in the same zone. You've got to swing your way and fight your way out of it. You can't try to press, but it's easier said than done.
He throws strikes, he's not afraid. He doesn't pitch away from the bat. He knows how to pitch. He has three good pitches. He's still trying to get a feel of his breaking ball some. He's been impressive. It's the first time I've seen him and I like what I see.
The guy can pitch, but we had an opportunity to beat him today, just like we had an opportunity to beat him in St. Louis and he gets off the hook. He wasn't sharp early, he hung some breaking balls we hit hard, but we didn't find any holes.
We're going to miss him big time but we know we're going to get him back, too.
We're going to give him as much playing time as possible this week, so we can make up our mind. I'm sure when you get to this point in your career you consider all the possibilities, and I'm sure he's doing some evaluation of his own abilities. So, yeah, these are important days for him.
We're going to fit him in right away.
What thing with Tony? If there had been a thing, somebody would have thrown some blows or something. There was no thing. We had a discussion.
What he gave me was a consciousness on how to do it,
Usually, if he makes a mistake, they don't hit him out of the ballpark with that sinker, ... He made a mistake; that's what happens with youth. We have a young pitching staff and a young bullpen that's subject sometimes to walks and also subject to mistakes.
With the injury he had, the biggest hurdle is everything. It's an injury to his core, which controls everything: getting out of bed, getting in and out of the car, getting up and down, hitting, fielding, throwing.
When you saw that Ecsktein went down that's when you know the field is too sloppy to play on.