Clint Hurdle
Clint Hurdle
Clinton Merrick Hurdleis an American former professional baseball outfielder and current manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball. Hurdle played in MLB for the Kansas City Royals, Cincinnati Reds, New York Mets, and St. Louis Cardinals, and has also managed for the Colorado Rockies...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth30 July 1957
CityBig Rapids, MI
battle dealing fix quite
I think he's dealing with it quite professionally. I know he's had enough hearing, 'Keep battling.' I told him how to fix that is to go out and battle and do well.
bat believe guys handle left meeting run somebody swinging tells three
I told my guys in the meeting today, man, it's like a snake. If somebody tells me it's dead, I'm going to run over it three times before I believe it. You tell me he's not swinging the bat good, I'll believe it when he's left here and we've been able to handle him.
battling bulk easy game improve lead pieces quality seeing spend until year
We've always wanted to improve our bullpen, but until this year we weren't able to get the pieces we wanted. It's been frustrating. . . . It's not easy to spend the bulk of the game battling for a lead and then seeing it get away. . . . Now we have some depth. We have some quality arms.
bat credit field onto taken
(Defensively), he's been outstanding. To his credit he hasn't taken his bat onto the field for one inning. That's why he's a pro.
battle carried emotions learned pitches survive
He experienced every emotion. He pitches well at times. He learned to battle and survive at times. He didn't back down from anything. He carried his load.
again ball bat both good last needs nice point quick release season strides swung threw throwing time trouble using
He made nice strides this spring. He just needs to keep making the strides that he made. There was a point in time last season where we were having trouble throwing the ball around the infield. Now he threw the ball accurately, his release times were quick and efficient. I think he swung the bat efficiently. He's using his off-gap again from both sides. He had a good spring.
barrel bat drive focus forward help looking productive role swinging talked watching
He's swinging the bat very well. He's got some barrel down there to drive in some runs. There are some things we've talked to him about we want him to focus on and take into the season, but I'm just looking forward to watching him play in that role and getting more opportunities to help us be productive offensively as well as defensively.
bat behind fourth guy hitting initially kid legitimate maybe obviously opportunity pick pitch power ran run stuck support took
Initially we stuck him in there because we had run out of options. He is a big kid who has some power and we thought maybe we can find a guy to pick up some run support when they didn't want to pitch to Helton. Obviously he took that opportunity and ran with it. He is a legitimate fourth bat in the lineup. He is not just hitting behind Helton any more.
create game moved tried
We tried to create some game situations, and he moved around pretty well.
angry asked coming complain maybe might mound realized ring seemed series surprised turned warming watch
What surprised me was when he went out to the mound with a watch on and was, like, surprised when we asked him to take it off. I thought maybe he got a World Series ring and a World Series watch, so that's why he seemed to be angry about that. There was a little glare coming off of it. We don't complain about much here, but at times when he turned his wrist, you could see a glare warming up. Obviously, it wasn't very expensive, the way he flung it into the dugout. Then I realized it might not have been a World Series watch.
acquire baggage carrying growing last players share
What's unfortunate is the baggage the new players are carrying around. Of course, we acquire our share of it last year, but we'd like to think we are growing from that.
handle maybe might next players rookies year
We might not have any rookies next year, or maybe one or two. We've had the young players we wanted to look at this year show us they can handle the challenge.
maybe might next rookies
We might not have any rookies next year, or maybe one or two,
beauty chance everybody finally took
We tweaked the lineup a little and everybody who got a chance jumped in and took advantage. We finally got out of that hitters' graveyard, Coors Field. That's the beauty of this game. You don't know what to expect.