According to Derek Lowe, Dusty Baker has been ordering pitchers to throw at him for the past five years. Due to various situations when he comes to bat, Baker has not had much success. During Wednesday’s 5-2 loss to the Reds, Lowe was brushed off the plate by a 96-mph fastball from Mat Latos at the start of the fifth inning. He instantly motioned toward the Reds manager and started to say something.
“Dusty will deny it,” Lowe explained after the game according to MLB.com’s Major League Bastain. “It has everything to do with him. They’ve been trying to do this (stuff) for years. I’d always come up with men on base. To say it didn’t come from Dusty, Mat Latos was with the San Diego Padres the last four years. He has no idea what’s going on. This goes back to my last year with the Dodgers. He made up some (bogus) story. A lot of people got involved. People almost got fired over it. There were a lot of people involved. I mean, by no means am I going to sit here and get into it.”
Lowe was then asked if whatever situation he is referring to was ever made public.
“No, but a lot of people knew about it,” he said. “I have zero respect for the guy — not that it matters. I imagine he’d say the same about me. But the (stuff) that was being said and the denials that he ended up ultimately doing was pretty sad. I’ll just leave it at that. They’ve been trying to do this (stuff) for years, but I always came up with men on base. It’s the first time it came up with no one on base.”
This would be much easier for us to understand if Derek would just shed a little light on what has been going on for the past five years, but apparently it’s a personal issue between him and Baker. The only reason I’m a bit skeptical is that it’s not that hard to hit someone with a pitch. If you believe what Lowe says, Latos was another pitcher who failed to hit Lowe when Baker asked him to. It certainly doesn’t take five years to get a pitcher to successfully hit someone when they come to bat.
Photo credits: David Banks-US PRESSWIRE, Troy Taormina-US PRESSWIRE
