This MLBbro legend has a historical resume. Dusty Baker is a baseball savant with Hall of Fame accomplishments to back it up.
First manager in MLB history to lead five different teams to division titles.
Ninth manager to win both National League and American League pennants.
Three-time Manager of the Year Award winner.
Let’s take a closer at his accomplishments with the Houston Astros:
Baker finished with a 320-226 record in Houston, leading them to the playoffs four times, and collecting two AL pennants.
He is one of three Black managers in the history of the game to win a World Series along with Dave Roberts (Los Angeles Dodgers, 2020) and Cito Gaston (Toronto Blue Jays, 1992 and 1993).
His final game as a manager was a Game 7 ALCS loss to the Texas Rangers narrowly missing three World Series appearances.
Bottom line, Dusty Baker brought the Astros out of the era of the sign-stealing scandal of the 2017 World Series. Something that the franchise needed more than the wins and championships.
It didn’t take long for the San Francisco Giants to hire Baker as a “Special Adviser” to baseball operations.
Something that the President of baseball operations, Farhan Zaidi was very happy about when our MLBbro O.G. was first hired.
“I was fortunate enough to get to know Dusty when we overlapped in the organization in 2019, and I’m excited to get to work with him again,” Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said in a statement. “We’ve had a chance to meet in person and discuss our shared vision of bringing championship baseball back to San Francisco. I learn something new in every interaction with him and look forward to leaning on his experience and perspective on the game.”
Houston Astros Lost Without Dusty
Well in this week’s episode of “Life Comes At You Fast” the Major League Baseball edition, the Houston Astros have fallen off the cliff as World Series contenders.
As of this writing, Houston is 7-16, losers of two straight, and have lost seven of their last ten.
In short, the Astros’ championship culture ended with Dusty Baker’s press conference.
The San Francisco Giants are two games out of first place in the NL West.
But are the baseball gods punishing the Houston Astros?
It’s peculiar to give Dusty Baker or anyone with his track record of success and baseball acumen continuous one-year extensions making the job difficult with lame duck situations. But for Baker to receive them leading the team to two World Series seasons and coming up one game short in two others, it’s plain to see Houston didn’t fully appreciate Dusty Baker and at times didn’t share the same baseball philosophy.
Baker’s final season with the Astros was an uneasy partnership instead of a united front. Our MLBbro was criticized for his lineups that sometimes did not include Chas McCormick.
So instead of having conversations about Dusty Baker being in the G.O.A.T. conversation for all managers instead of just MLBbro managers…
Distractions that might have cost Baker and his crew a chance at one more championship.
Dusty Baker Always Figured Out A Way To Win
While Dusty Baker figured out ways to win despite injuries and inconsistent play at times last season, this year Houston has bottomed out, particularly on the pitching mound.
Houston has the second-worst ERA (Colorado Rockies have the worst) in baseball.
The Astros pitchers collectively over 203 innings pitched among the starters.
JP France and Hunter Brown both have ERA’s over 7.00.
Even though Justin Verlander returned from the IL, Cristian Javier replaced him on Tuesday.
Even selling “building for the future” to the fanbase won’t work at this juncture. The Astros have the 27th ranked farm system in MLB.
MLBbro.com knows only one man who could guide Houston back to prominence, but he’s working in San Francisco.
The American League Championship Series is tied at 2-2 after Houston’s 10-3 win over the Texas Rangers on
Marcus Semien was on the wrong side of luck in Game Four after he was tagged out on his batting gloves after a line drive in the Ranger final attempt at a rally in what ended up being a 10-3 loss to Dusty Baker and his Astros.
Baseball is a game of inches and that is the reality Semien will have to flush and deal with after he was caught too far off of first base after a line drive straight to Jose Abreu.
“Just bad luck, if I sprint back on that liner, I probably get hit with the ball,” Semien told reporters postgame when describing the play that felt like the final dagger in the backs of Texas.
“Just a tough play and a good play by Abreu.”
Texas trailed 7-3 and had their first two batters of the inning reach base in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Semien, who began the game with a 103 MPH line out to center field ended the night 1-for-4 and is still batting under .200 in the ALCS, singled before being called out after instant replay showed he was tagged on his gloves.
“I have worn my gloves in my back pocket my entire career and that has never happened,” said Semien.
“Of course, in the ALCS it happens. It is tough, you want to get a big inning there. We get two hits; Corey hits the ball hard and instead there are two outs.
ALCS Tied At 2-2: Now A Three-Game Series
After securing postseason career win #56 Dusty Baker and the Astros evened up the series at 2-2, making it a best-of-three from here on out.
Houston was 8-for-16 with runners in scoring position in Game Four and the top five hitters in his lineup were 9-for-19 for a .474 average with eight RBI, five walks and eight runs scored.
Game Five will begin Friday afternoon at 4 P.M. Central time in Arlington.
With a lefty on the mound for Texas, Michael Brantley will probably be looked to be used off the bench as a weapon at the plate.
The Minnesota Twins proved that they are not to be taken lightly after Game 2 of the ALDS when they blitzed the defending World Series champion Houston Astros 6-2 in Texas to knot the ALDS at 1-1 entering Tuesday night’s pivotal Game 3.
The lines in Vegas didn’t shift too seismically but the magic of Minnesota in the playoffs and the exploits of Kirby Puckett and the gang back in the late 80s and early 90s began to creep into the consciousness of today’s baseball news.
Maybe this is Minnesota’s fairy tale season.
In Game 3, Dusty Baker’s Boyz put a brief halt to the optimism and the reality of the well-rounded team Minnesota was facing hit the Twin City faithful like a sack of baseballs as the Astros pounded out 14 hits en route to a 12-1 thrashing.
The Astros sit just one game away from clinching their seventh straight trip to the ALCS.
The baseball world got reminded of how potent and deep that Astros lineup is when at full strength, especially batters 1-5.
Every player in the starting lineup, except Yainer Diaz, had a hit by the 7th inning. The top five batters in the order were 7-for-19 with six RBI and just two strikeouts though seven innings.
The pesky Twins managed only three hits but kept fighting. They had their opportunities to score, but couldn’t get the key hit when needed, even leaving the bases loaded against Javier in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Yordan Alvarez continues to rake after winning American League Player of the Month in September. He added an insurance run in the 9th-inning with a solo blast to make it 7-1.
Former MVP Jose Abreu followed up his first inning three-run shot with a two-run shot to put the game out of reach at 9-1. It was easily his most impactful game as an Astros player.
Houston Astros Pitching Has Been Lights Out
For all of Houston’s offensive exploits, it was the pitching that fueled Dusty Baker to his 53rd playoff win and his 30th as manager of the Astros.
The playoffs are where you separate the clutch performers from the regular season imposters. Houston has two of the best arms when it comes to postseason dominance.
Those arms also hold the two longest active postseason scoreless streaks in Major League Baseball.
Starter Cristian Javier racked up nine strikeouts through six innings in Game 3 and now has tossed 17 straight innings without surrendering a run.
Reliever Bryan Abreu has a steak of 13.3 postseason scoreless innings. Two pitchers who were very pivotal in Houston’s World Series run in 2022 continue to show up this postseason.
The Twins managed just three hits and the look on Carlos Correa’s face as the camera flashed to him in the waning moments of the ninth inning was one of concern.
Before you start penciling in the Houston Astros for another American League Championship Division Series appearance, take a second and pay attention to the Minnesota Twins who blitzed Dusty Baker’s Boyz early enroute to a resounding 6-2 win to tie up the ALDS series at 1-1.
Carlos Correa, who drove in three of those five runs to help Minnesota jump out to a 5-0 lead, continued to shine in the postseason, delivering three hits, plenty of emotion and the leadership he was brought here to assert in the postseason.
This matchup is even more inspiring for Correa because he used to play for the Astros, won his World Series with them, before departing to avoid the stench of the cheating scandal that was taking over baseball.
So, his old gang is still on top, and the defector is back as an enemy to lift his underdog outfit to what would probably be one of the most satisfying wins of Correa’s career.
The Bros Are Rolling & Rallying Behind Carlos Correa
MLBbros Royce Lewis, who has been on an absolute historic power tear, and Michael A. Taylor, each contributed a hit to help pace an offense that produced 10 total hits.
While Dusty Baker’s postseasons with Houston have been full of deep runs and World Series quests, this Twins team has a grit that can give Houston’s unpredictable pitching staff fits. Both Taylor and Correa are major World Series contributors and champions. They make up for the postseason experience that young players on Minnesota lack.
Look for this series to go at least five games as Minnesota gains confidence that it can pull off an upset of the defending World Series champs and deflate Baker’s dreams of joining Cito Gaston as the only MLBbro managers to win back-to-back World Series rings.
Malik Wright catches up with MLBbro legend Reggie Jackson, who is also a special advisor for Houston Astros. Mr. October gives his assessment of the Astros’ World Series chances.
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