MLB WORLD SERIES: PHILLIES VS ASTROS

November 1, 2022

Dusty Baker

Citizens Bank Park

Houston Astros

Postgame 3 Press Conference

Philadelphia Phillies - 7, Houston Astros - 0

THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get started with questions for Dusty.

Q. What was the thought process in letting McCullers face the top of that order the third time in the 5th?

DUSTY BAKER: Well, the thought process was the fact that he had had two good innings, two real good innings, and then they hit a blooper, a homer, and then I couldn't get anybody loose. I mean, it was my decision.

Q. What do you think about José Urquidy's performance today after he hasn't been pitching since almost a month?

DUSTY BAKER: Well, I mean, it was very good. He started out a little rocky and then after that he settled down. It was very good.

But he's been throwing the whole time. He's thrown simulated games, he's thrown bullpens, and he's remained ready. That was what we needed so I didn't have to tear up my whole bullpen for the next couple days.

Q. There was a lot of talk about the Phillies being able to pick up something on Lance. Is that something that you noticed?

DUSTY BAKER: No, not really. I mean, you know, four out of the five homers they hit were off-speed pitches. And they hit one fastball that Bohm hit, a fastball. Now that's not anything I noticed. Guys are always looking for something, always looking to see if they're tipping their pitches. We didn't see anything. Sometimes they just hit you. You know what I mean?

And like I said, who knows, they might have been sitting on off-speed pitches because that's what they hit out of the ballpark.

Q. Overall, Dusty, what did you think of McCullers' stuff? Were all the home runs, did he make too many mistakes or how would you assess his overall performance?

DUSTY BAKER: Well, I mean, it was kind of mind-boggling because he doesn't give up homers. He usually keeps the ball in the ballpark. He wasn't satisfied with it. We were very surprised by it. When it's 4-0 in this ballpark, you don't want to go through your whole pitching staff because 4-0 in this ballpark is really nothing the way the ball flies here. So what can I say? The line score looks bad, but they were just hitting us.

Q. What did you think Ranger Suárez did tonight to kind of keep you guys off balance?

DUSTY BAKER: Well, he was mixing his changeup. He was effectively wild a little bit. He kept the ball inside sometimes on the right-hand hitters and then they got him out of there rather quickly.

Q. You gave David Hensley a shot at DH tonight. How would you evaluate how he did?

DUSTY BAKER: He did pretty good. He was 1-3, couple strikeouts. But for a young player he was in there because some of the other guys have been struggling. So he did pretty good.

Q. The TV cameras caught Bryce passing on a lot of info to his fellow hitters over there. As someone who managed him for a few years and he's obviously a pretty smart player, does that not surprise you much, just whether it was tendencies or whatever he was seeing?

DUSTY BAKER: No, that doesn't surprise me. He's a very astute baseball player, a very astute person. That's what teammates do. That's what good hitters do. They pass on whatever information that they can find and see.

Now, whether he passed on information to actually help 'em, that's between him and his teammates. But, no, that doesn't surprise me at all. That's what guys are supposed to do.

Q. The Phillies, obviously five homers tonight. This is a very, very dangerous offense. How do you navigate an offense like this? What kind of threat do they pose?

DUSTY BAKER: Well, it's pretty evident what kind of threat they pose. They can hit the ball out of the ballpark and they can hit. So we just got to go back to the drawing board and figure was it them tonight or was it Lance tonight not having his stuff. So we'll go back and analyze it. We've had 10 minutes to analyze it. That's not very much time. So we'll go back and we'll figure it out.

Last year at this time I think we lost Game 3 in Boston 12-3, and then we went back and we figured some things and then we ended up winning that series.