Talking to Dusty

Here's a slice of Dusty Baker's daily baseball wisdom:

ON JEFF KEPPINGER BEING A GOOD HITTER: "No. 1, he knows his limitations. He uses the whole field. He uses the center part of the ballpark . . . He's probably the one guy on the team that you see practicing hitting during batting practice. He's 8-for-10 every time. I see other guys hitting the ball up in air, seeing how far they can hit it. You can practice making outs like you practice making hits. He practices getting hits. He hit the home run yesterday and he went right back to using the whole field. . . he's the perfect second hitter."

AND ALEX GONZALEZ RETURNS? "I'll that figure out when that happens. In meantime, we'll get what we can until that happens. Kepp's seizing the opportunity. . . He reminds me kind of Rich Aurilia when he first came up. Everybody talked about Richie's range and whatever but he was always making the plays. That's what counts."

ON SLOTTING CUETO, VOLQUEZ: "No. 1, we wanted to seperate them because their stuff is very similar. We wanted to have someone a little softer in between. It makes it easier for hitters to adjust to the second guy (if they're back-to-back). I remember the Houston Astros separated J.R. (Richards) and Nolan (Ryan) with (Joe) Niekro. You'd rather face them back-to-back because your bats turned up to that high velocity."

"Also, there's friendly competition. One doesn't try to outpitch but outthrow other. For a young pitcher, one of worse things that came into the game is that radar game up there."

ON PAUL BAKO CALLING CUETO'S GAME: "You've got to credit Bako for knowing the opposition. That's Bako's forte. We need him to hit some, too. . . I told my catchers: You want to be the guy that pitchers like to throw to, always be aware of your personal ERA when you're catching."