Dusty Baker Wing Quotations

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's been throwing the ball pretty good. He's been better in relief than starting. He enjoys the role and wants to go on every trip, which is rare. He wants to go in case he can get in a game.

He got beat up pretty good today. They hit some balls hard. He was around the plate, throwing strikes. I just hope he's all right.

If he keeps throwing the ball like that, there'll be no problem.

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.

They are both throwing the ball good. It's just a matter of location most of the time. I'm confident it will come. They've pitched well in the past, so why wouldn't they pitch well in the present and future? I'm not too worried. You want them to be in great form right now, but we do have some time. They have a couple of starts left.

He's lost some valuable time and he's lost some valuable experience in there. We don't know if he's quite back to where he was before, even though he's throwing the ball very good.

This is something you hoped you wouldn't have to do, but it's one of those realities in sport and in life. It's not a pleasant situation, but it's here and it's real. This is a major blow. There's a lot to play for, knowing that he's with us and he gave us all he had all the time. We'll play for him, play for us, and play for everybody like we've been doing.

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.

You've just got to play smart when something is wrong. You still play hard. What you don't want to happen is altering his swing and creating bad habits. As far as how many at-bats down here, it depends on how he feels.

I'm sure he'd like to end the year pitching, knowing Woody. If we can get him in there, we'll try to do that.

Stealing isn't just speed. Most of it is knowing the pitcher and knowing what a guy does. He might dip his head before he goes to the plate or he might drop his hands slightly before he goes to the plate or his feet are narrow when he goes to first or he might slide-step.

Sometimes he has great command of the strike zone, and the next time ... It's a matter of being more consistent. He is throwing the ball good.

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.

He said he could go one more. But you could see he was laboring out there, throwing the ball high,

He said, 'Kid, you're swinging at everything,' ... He said, 'You've got to zone in or out,' which helped me a lot. He said, 'Look outside or look inside because you can't cover the whole plate.'

He's throwing the ball great. We just can't go to him when it means something yet. I have to talk to (general manager Jim Hendry ) and we have to figure this thing out, because we're not out of it yet.

Guys are throwing the ball well. We've just got to cut down on the walks. It seems like we walk somebody and they score.

His main thing is he's trying so hard he's not swinging at strikes. They're not getting him out, he's getting himself out. I've talked to him about it. When they come in the zone, he's not far from it. It's like fishing. You got to get that first one in the boat, everything is cool after that.

We'll take it to the end before we make our decision on who's throwing the best and what we need.

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.

I believe that when the wind's blowing in. When the wind's blowing out, I don't care about the height of the bleachers. When the wind is blowing in, I think the height of the bleachers has had an effect.

He's healthy. Sometimes he's not swinging well and other times he runs into some hard luck. It's a combination. I can see him getting frustrated. He needs one or two days and he'll get rolling.

The bullpen hasn't gone the way we scripted. Guys were going two innings and you can't use them the next day. They told me Aardsma was throwing the heck out of the ball in Triple-A.