Earlier, Derek Lowe was quoted about Dusty Baker, and now Dusty fires back. While Lowe did not hit any of Dusty’s players when he was with the Dodgers, he did hit two while Derek pitched for Atlanta, then another last night after he was buzzed. The buzzing was intentional:

“I’m not denying nothing. I didn’t order anyone to hit him. I told (Mat Latos) to buzz him and make him uncomfortable. That’s what happened. Nobody hit him. Then he hit our guy.”

Lowe is a pitcher with a .147 career batting average. Latos should be able to get him out without buzzing him. Someone should ask Baker how often he tells his staff to come inside with other pitchers at the plate. As the for the confrontation from a few years back:

“Go ask him since he made it public. Understand what I’m saying. I’ll let it rest at that since he’s such a big man running his mouth talking about himself.”

It really got ugly when a reporter asked Baker if it bothered him when a player says he doesn’t respect you.

“Man, I don’t care,” Baker said. “A lot of people don’t respect me. He don’t respect himself. The word was whatever he did and said probably there was a good chance he was drinking at the ballpark and he don’t remember what he said or what he did. OK.

“When he said I shook my finger at him to say I didn’t have nothing to do with it. It wasn’t to say I didn’t have anything to do with it. It was to say: Don’t mess with me or my team. That’s what that means. He better learn sign language. OK.

“I’m done with it.”

The teams play at 12:35 PM EDT today. There might be fireworks.