Faith rewarded
Baker’s ‘confidence’ in Greinke paid off for Astros in Game 4
The Astros hired Dusty Baker to manage a crisis. The baseball managing would come later, but first, Bakerhad to guide the Astros out of the worst team scandal of his long lifetime. He knowsthatwaswhy he got a fifth try to win aWorld Series as a manager.
“If there wasn’t a negative air about things, I wouldn’t have this job, because they wouldn’t need me,” Baker, 71, said before Game 4 of the AL Championship Series on Wednesday. “I’ve always been thrust into situations where I had to call upon my background. You don’t really know why things happen in your life, and things happen in your life to prepare you to handle negative stuff.”
Game 5 on Thursday ended too late for this edition.
The Astros created the negativity by stealing signs to help win a title in 2017, acts that a Major League Baseball investigation confirmed in January. The pandemic has spared the players from heckling crowds, but theyhaveworn the weight of scorn from fans and opponents. Anonslaught of injuries only made things tougher.
But the Astros did just enough in the abbreviated regular season to qualify for the expanded playoffs at 29-31. They won their first two rounds, then lost three in a row to the Rays to open the ALCS in San Diego.
That is when the baseball crisis confronted Baker: leading by two runs in the top of the sixth inning Wednesday night, one out and two on, with Randy Arozarena coming to the plate. The Astros’ Zack Greinke had pitched well — except for allowing a two-run homer to Arozarena, the hottest hitter on the planet, his last time up.
So Baker visited Greinke and catcher Martin Maldonado at the mound. It was Greinke’s third time through the order — when hitters often punish a familiar, tiring pitcher — and Baker could call for his closer, Ryan Pressly, who still had not pitched in the series. That was the safe move, and Baker strongly considered it.
“I usually don’t changemy mind, but I hadn’t had my mind really, really made up until I got out there and I saw the look in Zack’s eyes, andMaldywas adamant about: ‘He can get this guy,’” Baker said. “And I said, ‘OK, you’ve got it then.’ It was more old school, doing the right thing that I thoughtwas right.”
Baker said a prayer on his way back to the dugout.
“Sometimes I talk tomy dad and I just get a feeling,” he said, referencing his father, Johnnie B. Baker Sr., who died in 2009.
Then Baker watched Greinke strike out Arozarena, allow an infield single to load the bases, and then fan Mike Brosseau to end the threat.
Greinke had not won in his previous 10 postseason starts, but he came close in Game 7 of the World Series against the Nationals in October 2019. Greinke cruised through six innings but was pulled by Baker’s predecessor, A.J. Hinch, with one in, one on, one out and a 2-1 lead in the seventh. Greinke watched as the next batter, Howie Kendrick, homered offWill Harris to put theNationals ahead for good.
Greinke threw only 80 pitches that night, one more than he had thrown Wednesday when Baker left him in to face Arozarena. Greinke said nothing in their meeting on the mound but later thanked Baker later on the bench, even before his teammates had closed out the Astros’ 4-3 victory.
“It was nice having someone have confidence in me, because ever since I’ve been here, they haven’t seemed to have confidence inmy ability,” Greinke said.