They seem to be justifying the decision to fire Dusty Baker........with the Moneyball era of baseball...............statistics...........younger managers who are less old school...................but it is odd...................................................for several reasons.....................and not just firing him............but the exceedingly odd things that happened in game 5...................................the year he was fired..........i have posted that before...............a game 5 where everything that could have possibly gone wrong for the Wash Nationals did.................................almost opposite of game 4 of this year's NCLS............where in just the 1st inning.............the St. Louis Cardinals.............did not seem to get anything right..................and in an elimation game...............playing at home..............Washington scores 7 runs..................................that does not usually happen.................low scores typically..........many games do not have a team score 7 in an entire game........

The transition from Baker to Martinez, 53, was part of an industry trend that saw five prominent teams — the Nationals, Phillies, Mets, Red Sox and Yankees — replace their veteran managers over the winter with men who are an average of 18 years younger and, in most cases, were more welcoming of the analytics wave that has taken over the game. It was a shift that did not escape Baker’s attention.

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“You realize in the world, especially this new world — there’s always been racist discrimination, but it seems like in this new world, there’s age and salary discrimination, which go hand in hand,” he said. “And also, there’s intellectual discrimination, because now you’re judged on your intellect based on which college you went to.”

As hard as it was to have the reins of a title contender taken away from him — the Nationals won 192 regular season games in his two years and are considered overwhelming favorites to win the NL East again this year — the further shame of it, Baker said, was that he had fallen in love with Washington during his time there, to the point where it became a close second to his beloved San Francisco on his list of favorite cities.