"We're going to hit our way out of this slump, not walk out of it" - Dusty Baker

[joshua]

Because it's a pretty crappy strategy. Especially in the age where clubs are putting a heavy value on OBP. This is exactly why the Nats are in a position where they have pretty much their entire bullpen available, including Stammen who has destroyed any Red he's faced (7 batters, 6 K's) and has been credited with 2 W's. I guarantee we see him again tomorrow in a situation where we are tied or down a run and need to rally.

[Krawhitham]

Dusty does not understand they very basics of baseball hitting

The main goal (besides scoring runs) is to get the starter out of the game. Relief pitchers are relief pitches mainly because they are not good enough to be starters (very few exceptions) You take pitches and working his pitch total up, when his pitch count goes up he gets easier to hit and then you can either knock him out of the game or he leaves because he has too many pitches.

Some pitchers you can hit right away but many more you have to work the count and hope they make a mistake.

[EMAW]

Proven fact, not made up like a lot on this board, that the teams with the higher slugg pct score more runs. On base is NOT nearly as important as slugging. Walks better than hits? Nonsense!!!

[dubc47834]

Utterly.

And the Baker apologists on this forum, and they are apparently legion, have succumbed to his genius of lowering expectations.

Either there aren't better managerial options out there, or a manager can't throw the ball or swing the bat, or batting order doesn't matter....one excuse after another.

I imagne it's probably time to extend him for 5-6 years.

There are better options......batting order does matter.....but at some point it is on the players. Without looking at stats and judging based off observations, we have 1 guy I can think of on this team that is hitting consistantly...Cozart. Everyone else is sucking it up at this point. Votto hasn't been his normal self, Bruce has looked good at times but streaky. So now it's Dusty's fault that we cant even get more hits than the other team scores runs. All I hear is Frazier should be on this team, he isn't even doing that good down in AAA, he's hitting .188 and has an OPS of .525....sounds like the savior to me.

Yes this team has flaws, yes Dusty does some stupid stuff sometimes, yes Walt has made some questionable moves, but this slump is on the players to me. I see no fire in these guys right now. I'm hoping once BP comes back that this team picks it up. It just gets frustrating hearing the same people complain about the same thing.over and over and over.