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
Todd did a good job playing first base in Spring Training. He likes playing first base. He'll play first most of the time and second base some of the time.
We had a hard time holding up our end of the bargain.
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.
To me, and he may not like it, but I point to him all the time as the way to be. It's not his personality to accept that, but I single him out, which I don't do that often. I say, 'Hey, this is how you want to go about your business. This is how you want to perform. This is how you want to work on fielding, hitting, bunting, everything.
My feeling is that life supercedes everything. I haven't heard the severity of it, but I know it's not good. When you get to those things, how do you put a timetable on it?
Some of it has to do with the fact that we have a strikeout pitching staff. I always liked my teams at the top of the league in defense and double plays. Any time you can get two outs on one pitch, it's a lot less pitches for your pitchers. A lot of times, it gets you out of the inning out of trouble.
No. He pitched so well the last time out. This time out, he's a different pitcher. Sometimes you have to figure it out yourself. He has the stuff. You could see from the last time out. It was just a bad day.
Just because you can hit, doesn't mean you know how to play winning baseball, ... That's what I'm trying to instill here, and it's not easy to do in the short time I've been here.
Other than the second home run by Dunn, the rest were legitimate. He missed location all day. That's the first time I have seen four solo home runs in each of the first four innings.
It is a little strange to be watching baseball that counts at this time of year. I know our guys are really excited.
He's had that from time to time. That's the first time he's had it this year, but when a guy comes to you and says his back is really tight, you can't leave him in there. It's just unfortunate that it happened tonight at the end of this trip, a bad road trip.
I talked to him last night and this is the first time he's been in a playoff situation. I just told him to go enjoy it.
We're going to miss him big time but we know we're going to get him back, too.