Dusty Baker Manages With a Baffling Lack of Urgency in Game 7 Loss to Rangers — As the Astros Are Blown Away, the Strange Decisions Pile Up

HOUSTON — One can argue — with plenty of conviction — that these flawed but tough 2023 Houston Astros never make it to Game 7 of the American League Championship Series without Dusty Baker’s steadying, calming hands on the wheel. And maybe that’s what ultimately should matter most. But there is no way to argue that Baker helped the defending world champions in this Game 7.

Instead, Houston’s 74-year-old baseball lifer of a manager shows an alarmingly lack of urgency in the ultimate win-or-else game against the Texas Rangers. In several instances, it’s downright baffling. And borderline unexplainable.

At times, one is left wondering if Baker is managing with a Game 8 that does not exist in mind. Game 7 ends with the Rangers running away with an 11-4 win, punching their ticket to the World Series and sending the Astros repeat title bid crashing into a brick wall.

But the decision making along the way sometimes seems as painful as the result.

Baker lifts proven postseason starter Cristian Javier after six batters and only one out in the first inning, but then gives unproven starter turned reliever J.P. France a longer leash as everything truly falls apart in the fourth inning. France being in the game at all is a curious choice, considering he has only pitched two and 1/3 innings since September 23. France’s one-time storybook run ended long ago and suddenly thrust into the one of the more heated postseason series of recent memory — in an American League Championship Series Game 7 no less — he rather predictably gives up four runs on five hits.

And just like that, this win-or-pack-up-for-vacation game is out of reach.

What is Baker saving Jose Urquidy for at this point in the game? Urquidy has pitched more effectively (and frequently) for the Astros this postseason than France. And he’s a much more proven October performer overall, a one-time surprise World Series hero. And later, when Urquidy is finally inserted in the seventh inning, he throws a scoreless seventh before giving up a home run to unstoppable Rangers slugger Adolis Garcia in the eighth inning. That is the only run he gives up in his two innings.

Two innings that are largely meaningless thanks to when Urquidy is put into the game.

Baker also declines to pinch hitter for veteran catcher Martin Maldonado in the fourth inning with his team down 8-2 and in need of all the offense it can get. Wonder rookie catcher Yainer Diaz and his home run power (23 dingers in 355 at-bats in the regular season) is just sitting there as a bat that would at least give Rangers pitcher Jordan Montgomery something to think about.

Instead, Maldonado gets to bat again, lifts a harmless fly ball to right field and finishes the playoffs hitting .143.

Again, where is the urgency? You can be the biggest believer in Martin Maldonado’s leadership and his voodoo-like effect on the Astros pitchers and still understand that there is no way you cannot bat Diaz for him in that situation. The Astros need runs in bunches and they’re running out of outs.

Yainer Diaz simply gives you a better chance of getting a few runs across. Maybe, it really is just the illusion of doing something. Diaz does only get on hit in limited at-bats this postseason himself. But sometimes you need to give a struggling team some sign that things could be different.

Pinch hitting Diaz in the fourth inning does that.

Dropping franchise cornerstone Kyle Tucker to sixth in the batting order — and keeping him there through the end of this series also seems short sighted at best. And it bites the Astros in this Game 7. Despite Tucker’s small sample size playoff struggles, there is little doubt that Rangers starter Max Scherzer would have been more stressed by seeing Tucker coming up as the fifth batter in the first inning with two on and one Astros run already in.

Instead it’s 36-year-old Michael Brantley, he of the valiant injury comeback, batting fifth. And Brantley promptly grounds into a double play to end the inning. And maybe the Astros’ most important chance.

There is no way Baker drops Yordan Alvarez in the lineup if he’s struggling in playoffs like Tucker did. Ditto for Alex Bregman. Tucker’s production should have earned him that same respect. It certainly would have given Scherzer’s much more to fret over.

Brantley ends up hitting .179 in these playoffs, not much better than Tucker’s .150 average.

Dusty Baker and His Game 7 Managing Decisions

Maybe Dusty Baker just wanted to go down his way, with his guys. Maldonado is certainly one of them, a status that is earned. It is no secret that Baker and Astros general manager Dana Brown do not exactly see eye to eye on many lineup decisions. Baker wasn’t going to be Houston’s manager next season if his team didn’t win the World Series again in all likelihood anyway.

That’s an incredibly unfair bar in many ways. Maybe Baker just had enough. He certainly did things his way in what will all but assuredly be his last game as the Astros’ manager. Whether Baker walks away from baseball entirely or takes a job managing another team besides the Astros, he proved plenty in this Houston run.

“We overcame a lot of stuff,’ Baker says. “I overcame a lot of stuff. We overcame a lot of stuff. People wondering why we weren’t where we were. It doesn’t matter who we were suiting up. It didn’t matter who we had injured.

“I personally got a whole bunch of undue criticism for whatever. You know what I mean? So you wear it and you hold your head up high. And you think about what you’ve accomplished versus what you’ve lost.”

Tip your cap to Dusty Baker for all he’s done fot these Houston Astros. Give him plenty 0f credit for that franchise-altering second championship that was won last October. Maybe Baker will be more appreciated by Astros fans after he’s no longer there to calm everything down. There is a good chance these Astros never get to this Game 7 without Dusty Baker.

But you still can’t say he managed with any real urgency in a Game 7 that meant so much to this Houston franchise.