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
areas base hard improve motion obviously spinning target tight work
One of the areas (Freeman) has had to target and work hard to improve on are (pitches) tight on him and things spinning away from him. Obviously we'd like to get him on base and see if we can get him in motion a little bit.
advantage behind blocking danny defensive good home improvement marked provided receiving stability taking throwing
Danny is taking advantage of the opportunities that he's been given. He's provided some very good defensive stability behind home plate. His receiving and his blocking and his throwing has been a marked improvement over anything that we've really had here in a long time.
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.
improvement
There was some improvement, but we need some more improvement.
cards early games guys house improvement pick season situations willing
There were games early in the season where we crumbled like a house of cards in situations like that. These guys are willing to pick one another up and that is a big improvement with this team.
improvement maybe optimism today
I think there is improvement. More optimism maybe today than there was yesterday.
continues good improve offensive optimistic players reason
Our young players give us reason to be optimistic for the future. Holliday continues to improve and should become a good offensive player.
breaking centered command confident fastball feels found head improved spring thinks
He thinks he's found something, a little something to keep his head centered and still on the plate. He made better pitches. His fastball command improved as a the spring went on, his breaking ball sharpened up. He feels confident going into the season.
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.