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
The things I want to see out of him is baseball experience and work on fundamental instinctive stuff -- running the bases, hitting the cutoff man, knowing when to run. I've heard that when he gets thrown out, he stops running. When you get thrown out, you need to be more daring.
We had to use Eyre earlier. They have too many left-handed hitters over there.
I was pulling for him to get one more hit to get to 200. It's even more for him to shoot for next year.
It doesn't matter if we're in the playoffs or not, we're trying to get to .500. We've got something to play for. Guys are still trying to get hits and get wins.
We couldn't get the ball down today. The ball was up and the location wasn't where he wanted it. Power hitters -- when you get the ball up and over the heart of the plate -- you're going to get hurt.
He's a ballplayer. These are things a ballplayer does -- they run the bases well, they hit well, they throw, they throw to the right base, they steal a base. I think we're very fortunate to get such a talent at such a low price.
I don't walk across the street thinking I'm going to get hit by a car,
I would say he's not where he was last year at this time, yet. Sometimes you have to hit with your mind. I'm sure he can do it.
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.
When we hit it hard, it was right at somebody. He (Lowe) got strike one low and away. He had good stuff today.
When we hit it hard, it was right at somebody,
Every time I think about giving him an off-day, he hits two or three home runs. Maybe I'll start thinking about that off-day. You don't want to give him time off against the Cardinals.
Every time I think about giving him a day off, he hits two home runs. Maybe I'll start thinking about that off day for him.
For a while it didn't look too good because we were hitting the ball hard and on the nose, but right at people. We scored when we had to and the bullpen did a good job.