Dusty Baker is managing the Astros like they are up by ten games, not a club in the thick of a competitive division race. In this weekend’s series alone, Dusty made several sub-optimal decisions that hurt the team’s chances of winning. Below is a list of the questionable decisions Baker made this weekend.
1. Starting Martin Maldonado at catcher for two out of three games.
This feels like beating a dead horse, but the fact that Dusty continues to give Madly the majority of starts at backstop is indefensible. Martin entered Sunday night’s game with a sub 60 wRC+ and, according to Baseball Savant, has been worth negative 14 runs on defense.