The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Dusty Baker: This Is Almost The Strangest Year Of All Time

Episode Date: August 28, 2020

Dusty Baker: This Is Almost The Strangest Year Of All Time

The Houston Astro. The Astros! The Astros! This exclusive Astros segment on Sports Talk 790 is brought to you by Expedity, The Future of Awesome. It's awesome. Dusty Banker is a manager of the Houston Astros here on the Matt Thomas show, and we are happy to have him for 10 minutes.

Skip, good afternoon. How strange was it for you to have two days off in the middle of a season, not named an All-Star break? Well, that's exactly what I was going to say. I mean, that was similar. to an all-star break. The only thing is couldn't get paid. And so, you know, I took care of a lot of business and caught up on emails

and made a lot of phone calls that I had made. So, you know, I was productive with it, but I read it been at the ballpark and I was trying to watch games on TV, which a lot of them were canceled or postponed. And so I was going to scout the A's and the Clippers, but, you know, it wasn't so. But the main thing is I'm just glad that that, you know, we escaped the hurricane and more than anything. But, you know, I hate the fact that, you know, Louisiana, Cameron, Lake Charles, you know, suffered because that's where my former wife was from. So that's how, you know, from Cameron, Lake Charles, Pryon Lake. So I'm very familiar with that, you know, with that area.

But just the first time I would have been in a, you know, in a hurricane. And, boy, it's certainly something that's, you know, very devastating. to everybody. No question about that. I don't know, Skip, if you have ever written a book before, but I think you could probably write one on this season alone of things that are happening on and off the field. I have to ask, have you heard from any of your players

about any thought of not playing tonight? Has that been even discussed in the last, say, 24 hours? No. No, I haven't spoken to anybody other than, you know, the guys that are on the, you know, the IAL, spoken to Brickman, spoken to Devo, I spoke into all the guys down in Corpus, you know, Rikidi, I spoke to Alvarez,

and so I was going to speak to the other guys when I get to the stadium today. You know, the, you know, the leader, you know, with the Players Association, the clubhouse is Lance, but he's pitching today. And so I was going to have a brief discussion with him today and talked to Bob Melvin last night, you know, probably 8, 39 o'clock. And, you know, he told me what happened in Dallas.

So, you know, we'll just see when I get there. And, you know, today is Jackie Robinson Day. I'm preparing for that. So, you know, there's a lot of heavy decisions to make in this world period. You know, it's almost on a daily basis. This is kind of the strangest year, you know, of all time. And I've been around, you know, this world for 71 years. So, and certainly not, the strangeness isn't over yet.

Yeah. So I'm assuming by your voice in what you're saying that you were prepared for anything here tonight, correct, in terms of guys saying when you're day, you're playing? Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is the year of preparedness, you know. I mean, this is the year where people are experiencing some things they haven't experienced in a year of, you know, people, you know, choosing sides, you know, people having. to make decisions that they probably wouldn't have never, you know, had to make, had all this stuff, you know, not gone on in the world. And, you know, like, I was a product of the 60s because I grew up in the 60s and, excuse me, I went to high school in the 60s. And so I was in Berkeley and

Haydashbury and, you know, during that time, and I'm right to the south, you know, to Streetport and Florida and Atlanta and, there's not Hank Aaron and some of the civic leaders. of, you know, that time and, you know, of the world. And, you know, this is very similar, but it's very devastating and, you know, it hurts my heart. It makes me sick to think that, you know, 52 years ago we were going through the same stuff, except, you know, they had dogs and fire hoses and people were, you know, we're trying to march peacefully and they're trying to now. but every day somebody's getting shot.

And I got a young son, 21 years old, you know, that I think about it, and I could see the hurt and the tears of some of the players on the ESPN, and my heart goes out to, you know, to the families and to those that are, you know, that are hurting, and those are sympathized, you know, sympathizing with the people that, you know, have gone through something similar or, you know,

a lot of my players in the past have called me, And they're like, Jake, now we've kind of got a better understanding of what you were, you know, talking about. And so, it's a very, this is a tough time to everybody. I hope someday, Skip, when the season comes to a conclusion, hopefully in late October, we can get you in and have a little more time to talk about a variety of issues. But since you were trying to balance a bunch of things, I do want to get a little baseball in from you. Because I just think you're a great storytelling. Well, that would help. Yeah, there's so many things that I want to ask you about both on and off the field is your career.

And we will certainly do that as we move along. but let's get to some of the things. You mentioned the phone calls you've had. I understand that Your Honor had surgery and expects a full recovery. Give us an update on the arms because I think there are some guys in your pitching staff that are getting hit a little bit, and some folks would like to know if there's any help coming up fairly soon on that. Well, I mean, we hope so. I mean, you know, Kiti is probably, I don't know, 10 days away, hopefully.

You know, that would be a big plus. You know, Devo, DeV. He's even, you know, even closer, we think. Probably Verlander's a little further away, you know, than we would like, but he's closer to, you know, reality than it appeared like, you know, when he first went down. And so, you know, we're getting, you know, a few arms ready, you know, Breggman's down in Corpus.

You know, I'm getting some of the videos on him, you know, he's running pretty good. Josh James is going again on flat ground, getting videos on him. So, you know, every day we're just hoping and praying that, you know, we get some guys back one at the time. We got a good chance to get Diaz back tomorrow. And it was really pretty good news on Alvarez because, you know,

they just shaved off some, you know, some bone, you know, they had grown up on both his knees. And fortunately, I mean, luckily, it wasn't any cartilage or Ligaman, and, you know, like I'd had those already in both my legs, and, you know, really are you the same? So, you know, we expect him to make a full recovery. I don't know if I've covered everybody, but there's a lot of guys, you know, still down. And Skip, let's keep it with the baseball. You've got, obviously, the big series will assume going forward with the Oakland A's.

You got your guys on the pretty good starting pitching lineup coming up for you. You got McCullors, Grinky, and Fronbear. In this series, even huger than normal, right, with 60 games to go? Just your thoughts on... Well, it's a huge series. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, like you said, I mean, this is a huge series. I mean, I went to bed last night thinking about it.

You know, this is like, you know, back in the day when, you know, Dodgers, Giants or Dodgers Reds or, you know, when I was coming up to Cubs and Cincinnati, I mean, you know, these two teams have been battling each other for quite a few years. and both of them have gone to the playoffs for quite a few years. So, you know, we don't need a necessary sweep, but, you know, you don't want to get swept either. You know, like you'd like two out of three or a possible sweep, reverse sweep like they did on us out there. And, you know, they're full forces. You know, their pitchers, they got a good pitcher staff. You know, they don't have any injuries. They don't have any, you know, COVID situations like we had in the past,

but nobody is, you know, giving any credit for or discredit. for losing people. And so, you know, we certainly got to, you know, battle them tough. You know, the secret to the A's is, you know, they're pitching staff, they got a good bullpen, and you can't walk people because they depend on walks. They don't get a whole bunch of hits,

but they depend on walks and home runs. And so we got to keep them in the ballpark and we can't walk guys, you know, in between, you know, the home runs because they're going to hit some home runs, but he just wanted to be solo. And I'm assuming as we wrap things up that you've got a George Springer,

report coming up in a few hours when you get to the ballpark? Well, we hope so. You know, I got him in the lineup with a question mark. You know, I said not to line up the night before, but, you know, if not, then, you know, he's tomorrow or probably the latest the next day. So I'm hoping that, you know, I get to the ballpark in Georgia City. He feels great. That's great. Skip, thank you for the time. Best of luck. Enjoy Jackie Robinson Jr. Junior Day, and hopefully you guys are playing some baseball this weekend. And so do I. All right, man. I'll see you later. Talk to you soon. That is Dusty Baker, the manager of your

your Houston Astros with us here at 1240 on Sports Talk 790.