Dusty Baker talked last week about getting contributions from rookies like Trea Turner, Reynaldo Lopez, Lucas Giolito and Koda Glover, reminding everyone that he’d previously said it would take everyone on the 40-Man Roster and more to get where he wanted to get this season.
“Remember in Spring Training I said I look forward to having some youthful exuberance and the veterans give them wisdom and knowledge and I like that combination of old and young and there’s some guys that have been taken under their wings if they don’t do certain things by some of the veterans,” Baker said.
“You see it and I hear it. Guys come to me and say, ‘Hey, is it okay if I talk to this guy and that guy about this and that,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah,’ just pull them off to the side and talk to them.
“You’ve got guys like J.W. [Jayson Werth] and you’ve got [Max] Scherzer and those guys that are willing to help and willing to help teach.”
On Friday afternoon, Baker explained that he was taking advantage of Scherzer’s willingness to teach to give Giolito an example to follow on a daily basis.
Giolito, who has struggled at times in his first major league outings, gave up two runs on five hits in 3 1⁄3 innings, throwing 61 pitches in long relief after Stephen Strasburg’s abbreviated outing on Wednesday night in what ended up a 5-4 win for the Nationals over the Atlanta Braves.
“It was better,” Baker said. “It was much better. He was much more determined, much more aggressive and he used his secondary pitches more and got them over more. He seemed kind of upset that he even gave up anything, I could tell, and I didn’t see that before, so I’ve asked him to emulate Max and I’ve asked Max to spend some time with him and it seems like it’s starting to pay off some.”
“I asked Max to take him with him,” Baker explained further when a reporter noted that Giolito had gone out to work out with Scherzer last week.
“I didn’t know that he went out with him. I asked Giolito to hang with Max. He can teach you how to work. He can teach you a lot. A guy would be a fool not to try to learn from somebody that’s of Max’s caliber. It’s like going to the library.
“It’s like a free library in knowledge and in wisdom and determination.”
Baker also talked about not seeing the 80-grade (on the 20-to-80 scout’s scale), “... elite fastball that sits mid-to-upper-90s” everyone read/heard about in scouting reports on Giolito, who has averaged 93.3 mph with his fastball in the majors and was sitting 93-95 against the Braves.
“I haven’t seen [the velo] either,” Baker explained, “but sometimes we put too much emphasis on velocity and we need to put more emphasis on are you hiding the ball, are you showing the ball, do they see the ball well, cause I’ve seen some 88 and 89s that came in there like 98 and some other 98s that came in there like 88.”
Plus, not all radar guns are the same, Baker said.
“I’ve always said, I don’t know if everybody is throwing that hard or not, cause I think some of these radar guns are hot to tell you the truth. That’s what I think. Cause I’ve got a pretty good idea what 98 looks like and some of these 98s, I was like, those don’t look like no 98 to me. Maybe I’m getting old, but I’ve got a pretty good idea about speed.”
Baker himself joined scouts around baseball in hyping Giolito this Spring, when he talked about the right-hander’s arm action and curve.
So what’s different for Giolito now?
“I know I saw a very quick arm in Spring Training. I don’t see the same quickness in the arm, you don’t know if he’s a little bit tired or what.”
After Wednesday’s outing, Giolito has a 5.59 ERA, a 7.34 FIP, 11 walks (5.12 BB/9), 10 Ks (4.66 K/9) and a .291/.385/.544 line against in 19 1⁄3 major league innings pitched.