The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Dusty Baker On Surprises In 2020: Maldonado's Clutch Hitting Is Up There

Episode Date: September 23, 2020

Dusty Baker On Surprises In 2020: Maldonado's Clutch Hitting Is Up There

And let's ask Dusty Binker. Dusty, you guys clinched tonight. You're going to have a glass of champagne on the flight to Dallas? Well, I'm not a champagne drinker. Oh, okay. Yeah, he gives me a headache. I didn't get those bubbles. You know, I'm more of a wine and a single malt scotch drinker.

But, see, I don't think we can have a celebration with liquor tonight. So I'm not really sure because I was looking at some of the other teams. it was kind of like a ho-hum, you know, like we won. And this team is used to winning, so I really don't know what we're going to do tonight. So I'm just hoping it's not too long because we've got to get on the plane and get to Dallas. And as it is, I think we get there at 3.34 o'clock in the morning. So you land in Arlington tonight. Will you go to bed right away or are you like watch the early morning news and stock reports?

No, heck no. You know, Jim Gillian taught me when I was coming up with the Dodgers. he says, turn, don't turn the TV on. Because you turn the TV on, because one night I come in looking like hell the next day, he goes, man, you've been up all night? What you've been doing? I said, I was in my room. And he says, hey, you know, did you turn the TV on?

And I said, yeah. And he says, don't turn the TV on if you want to go to sleep. So I'll just go to my room, you know, jump in the bed, send for my bags in the mornings, and say, I have no trouble going to sleep. I can go to sleep as quickly as any man alive. I just have trouble staying at sleep. I'm what you call up mid-sleep insomniac. Well, you got a stressful job.

That makes a lot of sense. Let me go to... No, no, but that's how I am. That's how I am, period. It has nothing to do with the job. You know what I mean? Just is midnight when you get up to, you know, use a bathroom. You know, your mind says, hey, you're up.

So you better take some notes or I got some thoughts for you while you're sleeping. All right. So I'm going to give you a few things to think about next week. I'm hoping that things get taken care of and you guys can relax a little bit in Arlington once this thing gets clenched. How much deep thought have you had about your rotation? And will there be a difficult decision to make, especially in the fact that you guys will not be getting any days off in between series, it sounds like?

Well, yeah, you know, we haven't given it deep thought, but I mean, the way Stromie planned it, he planned it, I don't know, a month ago, you know, our rotation, you know, what could be for the playoffs barring injuries. And so this is something that, like I said, we haven't given a deep thought, but, you know, we've, you know, where our rotation is set up now, you know, it's a good chance that's how it's going to be, you know,

in the playoffs. But we just have to determine which people are going to be, you know, which guys are going to be, you know, in the rotation, which guys are going to be in the bullpen, which guys can warm up quickly. You know, have a history of of possibly being in the

bullpen because, you know, we got a whole bullpen for guys that were stars in the minor league that are just learning how to warm up and, you know, not over warm up, you know, to be in the bullpen. And so, you know, right now we're just concentrating on trying to win this thing today, hopefully. And hopefully that is the case. Now, you and I will not visit until hopefully deep in the playoff run, so I hate to put the car before the horse here, Skip, but that's what we do here.

We do that. You can do that. You can do that. You can do that. You can do that. I know, but let me ask. What do you think it's a manager in terms of preparing for a playoff if you were to play the A, so you've already seen a boatload of times or maybe the Chicago White Sox? How does a preparation play into that? And how does your team play into that?

Well, you know, there's less preparation for us playing Oakland, you know, because we know them, they know us, and we played them a number of times. You know, we haven't played the White Sox last year. And I had played the White Sox probably six or seven years. And so, you know, I try to watch games. You know, you can't watch all of them. You know, I don't even know all the personnel that they have. I do know that they can hit. I know that they can really hit. And I know that they have, you know, pretty good speed, you know, good, you know, pitching style.

But, you know, like, you can't prepare for everybody. Yeah. We'll see. I mean, you know, we'll see when this thing shakes out. You know, we have time to prepare. But again, you know, like I warn everybody, you just, you got to play the day. You know, you play the day and take care of business and don't look too far, you know, in front of future else you can't see what's happening today.

All right, well, I won't look ahead anymore. I want to look behind a little bit. No, no, no, you guys can go ahead. Just don't force me to go too far. Well, I got my one question in. Let's rewind a little bit. Let me give you the three biggest surprises of your season. And then you tell me.

if I'm missing anything. Your Franber Valdez has turned out to be a very, very satisfying major league pitcher to watch. Kyle Tucker has grown up before our eyes after a guy that had kind of been just languishing back and forth about being a AAA major league player. And then obviously Jose Al-2-based season is the worst of his professional career. Is there anything else I've missed in terms of absolute surprises in the 2020 season for you? Probably Marlonato's quick hitting. Oh, yeah. You know, because at all the mile,

I mean, this guy, I think he might be second or third on the team in RBI. And I think he has like six home runs and 24, 25 RBIs. And this is in, you know, third of the season, actually. And so, yeah, I don't think anybody counted on that, especially when, you know, out of your eighth and ninth hole, you know, I mean, that's huge. Right. Because he, you know, he, you know, turns the lineup over.

And, yeah, I think he's it. And as well as Tucker, but, you know, Tucker's not surprised because nobody knew what he could do in the first place. I don't think he knew what he could do. You know, I mean, he thought, I mean, everybody thought it. He probably thought it, but until you actually do it, you know, do you, you know, start believing it? And so the sky's the limit, you know, for Tucker.

I see why he's the number one draft choice. You know, a lot of these guys I didn't know. You know, I didn't know Framber. You know, only guys I knew were Uly from watching on TV. And I knew Maldi when he was in, and I, and I'm Milwaukee. I met Carlos Correa. I knew Bram his father. I think I met Bregman one time, spoke to out to him a couple of times,

and never met Springer. So, you know, this is all kind of new for me, but, you know, I'm glad I'm here. Oh, for sure. Last question. You guys are not supposed to come home for a month if everything turns out really, really well. How do the heck do you pack for that? Well, don't ask me. You know, the problem is, you know, I don't want to get personal, but I was talking on my underwear. And I got like, 16 pair underwear. You know, I was like, well, that's not quite a month. And so, you know, I got a lot more T-shirts than, you know, the underwear. So it's just, you don't want to take too many shoes, but you don't want to wear the same shoes every day. You don't want to take. you know, you know, too many pants, outfits, but how are you going to send them to the cleaners? And I don't like sending my stuff to the cleaners in the hotels because I've lost clothes, you know, they've lost them. And I never got them back.

So, you know, this is all new for us. I mean, we're going to have to take some tips from the NBA because NBA did it pretty good. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I was proud of how the NBA did it and then, you know, baseball's done a good job. I mean, doing an excellent job. It's tough. You know what's tough was really the toughest part of all is not going to eat, you know, to eat what you want to eat, where you want to eat. Like last night I didn't like the food that was presented to us.

And it had some chili that they ran out. That's one of my favorites. So last night I ate a combination of raisin brand and banana and rice chicks for. for dinner after the game. So I was like, man, I certainly got to get something to eat now. So that's the toughest part, you know, for me. Well, I hope. Yeah, well, I hope the food improves as the playoffs go.

I hope you're on the road a long time. And remember, skip, 16 days can actually be 32 if you turn the underwear inside out. So don't worry about, you know, setting that out. Well, that's fine. I mean, maybe I'll ask somebody to you something. I don't know. But, I mean, we'll just take it a day at a time and, you know, see what we do.

Well, my guess is a week from today. You'll be playing a game during this time slot or close to it. So we hope to catch up with you sometime during the postseason, whenever that may be. Congratulations on hopefully securing a spot in the next day or so, getting some guys some rest, and we look forward to seeing what you guys do come October here. I'll go, thank you, man.

You got to take care of yourself. That's Dusty Baker with us here on the Matt Thomas show.