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
agonizing beaten clean dig efficient games hole imaginable knew last losses lost obviously step
We have been beaten and had agonizing losses and we've lost games every way imaginable for way too long to get overconfident. We knew we couldn't dig a hole like last year. You know where that's going to get you, in any sport. So to come out clean and efficient is obviously a step in the right direction.
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.
balls capable hitting leaving obviously pitching team
Because they're capable of doing it. And obviously I think the other team would be the first one to tell you, they're not pitching like they can or like they need to. They're probably leaving balls up over the plate. We're getting some balls to hit, and we're hitting them.
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.
early explosive good guys hanging house involved kept lead needed ninth obviously
This is a big pick-me-up. Some guys showed up big-time. We just kept hanging around after an early lead got away. Obviously it was a pretty explosive ninth inning, and some guys that needed to get involved got involved. It's a good confidence-builder all around the house for us.
course finish last obviously season stays thrown time topic
If he stays the course with it, obviously he'd be thrown into the mix. But again, time will tell. Let him play. Let him finish the season the way he's been the last two weeks. Then we'll have a topic of discussion.
anyone days pitch roles three
There are going to be opportunities in different roles because we don't want to pitch anyone more than three days in a row.
number roles
There are a number of roles he could fill. We need to see how he handles them.
gotten guy innings people power strike wild
When you have a reliever that's a power guy that can strike people out (80 in 67 innings pitched), he's never out of the inning. As wild as some of these innings have gotten with him, he's been able to put them away.
add love
We love what Ojeda does defensively. We'll see if we can get him tightened up to add a little more offense.
certain earlier manager might miss missed opportunity situations statement sullivan
There comes certain situations where I think a manager has an opportunity to make a statement to his team. You don't want to miss them. I might have missed one with (Cory) Sullivan earlier in the season.
fifth starter
There has really not been any separation. We don't have a fifth starter right now.
heard pitcher saw
We saw a different pitcher than what we heard about.
far good gotten parts roll solid
We just haven't gotten on a roll here where we've been able to put the combinations together, as far as the good-pitched game, solid bullpen, the good hitting, the good defense. We haven't done that with much regularity at home. We've had this part or that part -- we haven't had all the parts in a roll.