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NL DIVISION SERIES: REDS v PHILLIESOctober 9, 2010Dusty BakerCINCINNATI, OHIO: Workout Day KATY FEENEY: Questions for Dusty Baker. Q. Dusty, have you had a chance to see a replay of the Chapman pitch on Utley, and do you think he had him? DUSTY BAKER: No, I haven't seen the replay. It wouldn't do any good for me to see it. I've had enough people tell me about it. But it was a tough play. I couldn't tell whether or not he was hit. It was a tough play. It's easy after the fact when you have slow motion and everything, similar to the Jeter play. I mean, heck, I've done that myself. It wouldn't do me any good to look at that. Q. I was going to ask you that. You played plenty of times in the major leagues. If you got hit in the hand with a 100 mile-an-hour fastball, how would you have reacted? DUSTY BAKER: Depends if it hit me or grazed me. I've been grazed, and it's hard to act on a hit. It's easier to act on being grazed, not a hit. Heck, in the World Series, I faked a catch, you know, short hop. You're going to do what you have to do. I don't think it's cheatin', necessarily, like a lot of people want it to be. They want people to say, Yeah, I did it, I didn't do it, probably doesn't work like that. But his chances of getting grazed and getting to first base might have been a better chance of actually getting a hit at the time. So you do what you have to do. Q. Can you give us an update on Orlando and if he isn't able to go tomorrow, will you look to replace him on the roster? DUSTY BAKER: We're waiting to see him now. Actually, he called my trainer and said he wasn't any better, and it's been bothering him for a while now. Then he'll get better and then it bothers him again. I think it's going to be tough for him to play and it's tough for us, too. We have to make a decision, of course, but it's tough for us to anticipate, is he going to be well by tomorrow. We're going to wait as long as we can to see, but it's tough for us to play short, too, which we did a lot this year. We had a pool of guys that went to Arizona for this situation. So Chris Valaika is coming here, so if Orlando can go or is available, he'll go. If not, then we'll put Valaika. But the thing about it, if we do that, then Orlando isn't available for this round. And but we got to get to this round before we get to the next round? Q. Dusty, is there something you can draw on, some kind of magic for your team? It's a tough spot. DUSTY BAKER: It is a tough spot, but it's not impossible. All things are possible through faith and perseverance. I've been in this situation, down 2-1, down 3 with 3 to go. In 1980, Arroyo I think was in Boston when they were down 3-0 in a best-of-7, and they came back and won 4. Like I said yesterday, the hardest thing is to win one. And you win one, and you got yourself some action. And we've got our backs up against the wall, but this club performs well with our backs up against the wall. That's the kind of club we have. I wish we didn't always have our backs against the wall, but, you know, we've been there before, not necessarily in elimination, but we're just trying to get one. Q. Dusty, yet again we're hearing a lot about umpires throughout the postseason. Where do you stand on the replay and do you think this is media overkill? DUSTY BAKER: Well, it's been something since the beginning of time. That's a job I wouldn't want, you know, because you are only scrutinized when things aren't right. And you have one call and you only have a couple of seconds to determine that call. So, you know, where do you stop an instant replay or actually where do you start? I mean, that's a very tough call. You have a matter of seconds to do it. Everybody is at home, they can slow it down. They can have replay. They can have anything at different angles, whatever it is. That's a very tough situation. But, you know, umpire is the umpire, and the only way to improve, you've got to get them maybe some "slow mo" glasses. If you give them slow motion glasses, then they might see the same thing you guys see and what everybody sees on TV. And it doesn't work like that, so you have to leave the human element in there to some degree, or else we wouldn't have nothing to talk about. Q. Dusty, you talked about having your backs against the wall and coming up big in situations like this when you needed to. Can you talk about confidence in your Game 3 starter in this type of situation? DUSTY BAKER: Well, Johnny Cueto has been excellent at home here. And if not, it's kinda "Johnny Whole Staff" tomorrow and the next day. And we can't afford to get behind. We need to get ahead. I have confidence in Johnny Cueto. If not, he would not be starting. He's a young man that's hungry. He's a young man that's been through a lot in his short lifetime, so we got a lot of confidence in Johnny Cueto. Q. Dusty, you had a situation a few weeks ago where you guys got swept by the Cardinals and things looked dire and your team pulled together from that point. Do you see any parallel between that situation and this one, and can you talk about what were the dynamics on your team that enabled you to rebound from that? DUSTY BAKER: Well, you know, we had a short discussion about it previously. We had been swept in a four-game series by the same Phillies, and how we responded from that, and you can call up on that 4-game sweep to negate that 3-game sweep. And hopefully, that 4- and that 3-game sweep can hopefully bring us through this one. Because every time you're in a bad situation, whether it's baseball or your life, it's the worst situation you've been in until the next one comes along. And the next one comes along, and you're thinking, What am I going to do? And you always seem to go through it until the next one comes along, and that's what we've got to do, we have no choice. Q. Dusty, you have a few veterans on the team that have been here before, but the fact that your team is so young, is it easier to be in this situation, because young guys seem to be resilient and don't know any better? DUSTY BAKER: No, I don't think it's easy to be in this situation at all. I would rather be up 2-0. Personally, I was thinking this morning about, you know, when I was in the military, and you would rather be in a situation where, on your second or third tour of duty, to know what to do rather than your first tour. This is the first tour for these guys and you're actually more resilient as you get older, because you've been through more, you've been through more problems. Like I said before the worst situation in your whole life, until you get the to next one. I'm not worried too much about these guys. Q. Dusty, how much did you replay in your mind from last night to this morning, last night's game or have you forgotten about it, tried to push it in the back of your mind? DUSTY BAKER: Well, you don't exactly forget about it. I have no trouble going to sleep. I can go to sleep in a matter of seconds. I'm a kind of mid-sleep insomniac, it wakes me up at 4, 4:30 thinking about things. And I try not to think about the game, because you can't bring that back. Going forward, lineup changes, different things we have to do to win, because you cannot do anything about replaying the game. It's impossible. It does no good. So one of the best books I read this year was, "The Power of Now ,"which tells you to get out of the past and get into the present. And that's the only thing you can control, is right now. We can't bring it back. Q. Any other time of year would Scott Rolen be healthy enough to play? DUSTY BAKER: Well, probably. He's been in this situation for the past, I don't know, couple months, actually. You know, this time of year most people out there are -- there is something wrong. You go to the Phillies clubhouse, I bet you there is something wrong with Jimmy Rollins, or Utley, or everybody out there. If nothing is wrong with you this time of year that means you didn't play too much, if you played much at all there is a good chance there is something wrong with you. KATY FEENEY: Thank you, Dusty. End of FastScripts |
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