Dusty Baker Pitching Quotations

No. 1, you have to make sure he's OK so this thing doesn't linger all year long. Fortunately for us, he did get some at-bats during the World Baseball Classic and the fact that he did pretty well shows he's not that far off. He saw better quality pitching in that than he would down here. It was to his advantage and ours that he did play.

Some of it has to do with the fact that we have a strikeout pitching staff. I always liked my teams at the top of the league in defense and double plays. Any time you can get two outs on one pitch, it's a lot less pitches for your pitchers. A lot of times, it gets you out of the inning out of trouble.

I don't doubt that this guy is smart enough to do anything that he really wants to do. I don't know if he was quite pitching to the ballpark . . . and if you ask him he probably wouldn't tell you anyway.

I didn't have any choice because I had a short bullpen. If we tied the game up, and I'm out of pitchers, where I have to hit for them -- I only have five guys. That's why I double-switched, to get the most innings out of the guys pitching without running out of pitchers and running out of position players.

Just a sad day on the pitching side.

You know how I feel about things. Until you're mathematically eliminated, you've got a shot. Who knows? (Sunday's 14-3 victory over Florida) could have started us on a long winning streak. I was thinking, 'What happens then?' I had visions of 'Woody' being remorseful in (not pitching in) the playoffs.

That was great pitching from both sides. You know Harden is one of the top young pitchers in the American League. We had a couple guys out there who were dealing.

Usually, if he makes a mistake, they don't hit him out of the ballpark with that sinker, ... He made a mistake; that's what happens with youth. We have a young pitching staff and a young bullpen that's subject sometimes to walks and also subject to mistakes.

At this point, it's hard to imagine him not pitching forever.

A lot of it depends on the strength of your starting pitching. If your starting pitching is good, you won't need 12 too much. Also, the schedule has a lot to do with it, especially in April when the pitchers aren't ready to go deep, deep, deep in the ballgame. You don't even know at that time if you'll need five starters. You might only need four. You hate to lose that guy's endurance by not pitching. It'll work itself out by the time we get ready to leave.

They've done a great job of not only him pitching well there but getting ready for us, too, which they promised us they would do.

You're always concerned about it and you wonder how they're going to handle it. We've only played a few games. It's a period of adjustment for anybody changing leagues. You don't know the pitchers, you don't know the umpires, you don't know the philosophy of the pitching coach on the other side -- especially when you've been in the other league.

The Cardinals have a fine team, a real good team. We'll come out next year and try to get the lead or at least stay close -- and stay healthy. They're No. 1 or 2 in pitching, and that shows you how important pitching is. We get our starting pitching healthy and we'll be all right.

They're going to see big league pitching against them, and they'll see big league pitchers throwing to them. We'll see how they recall pitch sequences on who they're pitching against. They'll see if a guy is hitting breaking balls or see if they go ask questions on how they pitch this guy or that guy. Does a guy hit this -- what are his strengths or weaknesses. They have to pay attention because they're big in this equation.