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
Marshall has shown control and poise. He has a very good delivery, and it looks like he has three pitches he can control pretty good. He doesn't seem in awe of being here. I'm very impressed.
That was huge tonight, to get back to 2-2. We definitely wanted and needed the game tonight to start the Series all over again. We certainly didn't want to go down 3-1 then have to win three in a row.
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.
That first inning has cost him a lot of pitches. He's been throwing so many pitches the last three starts, that's why we took him out. After the first inning, he started throwing the ball better. He had a lot of deep counts, a lot of 3-2 counts. Those pitches mount up.
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.
He's had leg problems two or three years in a row. But I've got to play him enough to get him ready, too.
Guzman has missed a lot of time. He's very close. You don't know if he's quite ready. Certain guys need to pitch. He has missed parts of the last three years (with injuries).
He moves the ball around and works the ball on the outside part of the plate. He throws two or three different speeds off his fastball and keeps you off balance.
I have three years, ... I don't have anything to do with the other 100 or something years. That's how I look at it. It's not a burden to me. I have three years and I'm hoping to turn it around in year No. 4.
He started out not very sharp and he had 37 pitches in the first inning. That's almost three innings worth and we were debating whether or not to send him out in the seventh or not but he wanted to pitch and he ended the game strong.
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.
I like his speed and his attitude, and he switch-hits and plays all three outfield positions. He asks good questions. He's hungry to learn.
The main guy will get the majority of the playing time. Is that 60 percent? Is that 70 percent? Is that 51 percent? I'll talk to them. Quite frankly, that's a fortunate situation to have three quality guys. It's not a problem; it's a fortunate situation.
We hung a slider and Albert doesn't miss sliders too much. He doesn't miss pitches up in the zone.