The funny thing, whatever Dusty Baker’s agent is, and will be, is that he’s had a lot more post-season looks. While he will always be guilty the work of the Giants in 2002 and the Cubs in 2003 – fair or not – his time in DC and in Houston has shown a guy who has learned how playoff baseball works. He is usually quite aggressive when he gets to his cowshed, ready to turn his boot upside down if relief is needed, and consider the next time as the only thing that matters. That’s how you do it.
For some reason, in this World Series, someone took him back almost 20 years.
Baker was too slow to realize in Game 1 that Justin Verlander would never make it past the Phillies lineup a second time and he’d lost control of basically all of his pitches. Baker had a full bullpen break after wiping out the New York Yankees, and only had two games to worry about before another day off. You can basically do your entire cowshed in Games 1 and 2, especially since they’ve had three days off since the end of the previous series. Dusty and the Astros may never get that win back.
He could have done it again for Game 3. Now, it’s certainly not Dusty’s fault if Lance McCullers leans over to pitch. What is, or could be, with the rainout pushing the game back a day, Baker has the choice to ignore the McCullers altogether. Joe Sheehan is beat this drum all day yesterday, as the Phils were the top 10 team facing slides and curves all season. All of the McCullers’ throws were sliders and cutters, and were clearly a worse match for the Astros than Christian Javier, who thanks to the bonus day off was available to start Game 3, with Verlander available to start Game 4 and Frame Valdez available to start Round 5, all resting normally. Option never to show the Phillies a pitcher with only the ball already on the table. Baker didn’t make it, and his team lost by a touchdown. There’s not much Baker can do when his roster is short, and they don’t even close to assembling competitive ABs, but this seems like a mistake.
That’s not to say the Phils are powerless against the fast ball. They placed 10th in wOBA with four athletes competing all season. If you restrict that to fast balls at or above 95 MPH, they drop all the way down to 22nd with the .291 mark. Javier has an average of 94 MPH on his fast ball, but one can tell that with World Series adrenaline and directives that he will only go through the lineup twice, at most, he can live in range. which Philly finds very difficult to deal with. We’ll see how it plays out in Game 4 tonight, obviously.
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Again, it’s hardly Baker’s fault if the McCullers accidentally signaled to the Phillies what he’d been throwing all night. Without tipping purpose, maybe he’s still spinning a gem and this is all debatable. But this is like the second time in three games that Baker failed to take advantage of the options open to him. Now his team is down 2-1. They will have to beat two of Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler and Ranger Suarez, and possibly all three to win the Series. It’s more difficult now that they’ve beaten Wheeler once, and have beaten Nola, and it’s hard to determine that with the right health (no certainty with Wheeler reported) those two will got off to a bad start with another person.
Again, it feels like Baker reverts to the old version of being stuck in his way, the ways that dictate that Verlander can’t be ahead because he’s Justin Verlander, and the ways that are supposed to be do not deviate from the rotation set before the series no problem. It’s becoming a trend for him, for sure.
Perfect pass
I want to buy this Leon Draisaitl pass an expensive cocktail and maybe some kind of dessert pot sticker:
