AL DIVISION SERIES: TWINS VS ASTROS

October 8, 2023

Dusty Baker

Minute Maid Park

Houston Astros

Postgame 2 Press Conference

Twins - 6, Astros - 2

Q. What did you think of Framber? Did you think that some of his struggles that he had were kind of a microcosm of what his second half has been?

DUSTY BAKER: He got a couple pitches up. He had Correa, who's had a great series so far. He had him, I think one ball and two strikes and got a breaking ball up. He hung a breaking ball. And the home run to Farmer was a pitch up.

You know, he's human. This guy has been lights out in the playoffs the last few years, and he just showed he's human, but they outhit us and they outpitched us because the guy on the other side was pretty -- we know was very good tonight. He changed speeds. He was good velocity on his fastball, four seam, two seam, good slider. We really couldn't get a whole bunch going.

That's what happens when you get a good pitched game against you.

Q. Dusty, you guys got to struggle to try to get some stuff happening offensively. Peña kind of got excited, looks like he was fighting himself. Is it just because the other pitching was so good or just a rough night for you guys?

DUSTY BAKER: That was a well-pitched game. Sometimes it looks like you're not even really into it, but you certainly are in a game like this of this magnitude.

The nod goes tonight to their pitcher. When a guy's dealing, and they got an early lead too, and that made it even tougher. What did he go, seven innings? We didn't get anything really going until he left the game.

Q. Did you wrestle with the decision at all to let Valdez face Correa that third time?

DUSTY BAKER: Yeah, but he's the best double play guy I got. He's one of the best double play guys in the league. Correa's hit into 30 double plays. Anybody else that I brought in there in that situation wasn't as good a double play guy as Framber because we've seen Framber -- he threw up a couple tonight. He threw up a lot of ground balls tonight.

So that was a decision I made because I thought he was the best guy to get out of his own trouble.

Q. Lopez was 21 of 27 on first pitch strikes. Did you feel like you guys might have let some pitches, some good pitches to hit, did you take too many good pitches early in counts?

DUSTY BAKER: Well, it's not like those pitches are down the pipe. I mean, those pitches are in, out, and those are low percentage pitches to swing at and high percentage pitches for him to get strike 1. But strike 1 is -- when a guy's usually dealing like that, he usually has strike 1, and a lot of times it seems like you're 0-2 when you get in the box.

Take a good one, foul off one, or take another close one, and the zone was a little wide tonight as well. But you get those pitches when you're around the plate.

There's nothing that you can say. The guy was dealing tonight.

Q. Do you take a little bit of comfort in how well you've played on the road this year going to Minnesota?

DUSTY BAKER: Yes. I mean, we know we're a good road team, and Minnesota coming in here, they want to go back home 1-1, and we'd like to bring it back to the house here or win it there. So that's our goal, and their goal is to win it there. So we'll see come Tuesday.