AL DIVISION SERIES: TWINS VS ASTROS

October 11, 2023

Dusty Baker

Target Field

Houston Astros

Postgame 4 Press Conference

Astros - 3, Twins - 2

Q. Dusty, if you want to just start with your thoughts on Urquidy tonight.

DUSTY BAKER: Urquidy, he was awesome. Maldy directed him to the game, and he had his change-up working, located his fastball well. Threw a couple, a few good breaking balls.

The only really mistake that he made was to Lewis. He hung a slider to Lewis, who is a dangerous, dangerous hitter. Going to be a great ballplayer.

They have a very good team. They played us tough. We had to do everything we could to try to win that game today, and we really wanted it, especially because you don't want to go back home to play that fifth game if you don't have to, and we'd have had to burn Verlander.

Now both of our teams, Texas and us, are pretty rested in our pens and in our starting rotation. So should be a heck of a series.

Q. The last two times that Urquidy started, it's been in really big moments. You see something extra in him when he has to kind of step up on those occasions?

DUSTY BAKER: I first noticed Urquidy, who I didn't know who he was in the World Series in 2019, and I was like, man, who is this dude out there? I'm very partial to pitchers from Mexico because those are the guys I played with, Fernando, Maximino León, just various guys. Then I played in Mexico. We had a guy on our team that reminded me of Urquidy, Vicente "Huevo" Romo. Those guys from Mexico, they can throw their off-speed over the plate, and usually have a good change-up and a good breaking ball.

I started noticing Urquidy at that time in that game in 2019, and I didn't know him, but he's a big game guy. He kept using the clock to his advantage to compose himself, and he scared me a few times because he was like down to one second or two seconds, and I'm like, come on, Urquidy.

We got burned one time tonight with Neris with the pitch clock. He was outstanding, though. Our whole bullpen, Neris was great. Abreu continues to be great, and Pressly threw an outstanding ninth inning. Him and Maldy have been working together for a while. That shows the value of experience and guys working together.

Q. Talk about the series Abreu had. I know he's played a lot of games here, playing with the White Sox before this. Kind of talk about the big series he had.

DUSTY BAKER: Yeah, I told him for the series, I said, hey, you're very familiar with this ballpark. There's some ballparks that you perform well in. There are other ballparks that you have trouble in. And he was outstanding here.

He's a guy that's very even tempered. When he was going poorly, he told me, it's okay. It's okay. Then when he was going great, he was like it's okay, it's okay. When it was going poorly, I was like, man, it ain't okay. But in his mind, he knew that it was okay.

Q. Speaking of that mild tempered or even tempered, you kind of had that throughout the season when you guys weren't going well. You kept saying you know what this team is capable of and what you're going to do. How do you maintain that thought when there were times it looked like --

DUSTY BAKER: There are times when you just have to rely on faith and rely on a guy's background. I was always taught that water seeks its own level.

It took a little while, but he's been -- he drove in 29 runs in September. That's getting it done down the clutch, you know, in the clutch. He had a big series here, and hopefully he can continue that against Texas and hopefully the World Series.

Abreu's here now. He's cold. I can see he's cold. He's shivering.