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
almost anywhere ask bit field innings low player position ready spring
We had almost every position player play anywhere from the low 60s to 100 innings in the field (in spring training). We're not probably going to ask him to do that much, but it's going to need to be a little bit more than him just getting 25 at-bats and being ready to go.
hate move position raw skills turn
You hate to keep tweaking things with him. You want to get in a position where he can just move forward. We know the raw skills he has. We have to turn those into game-day skills.
believe grow half last learning ourselves players position process saw season second surprise
We've put ourselves in position to surprise people. We went through a learning process last year, and I think you saw in the second half of the season that our young players started to believe they could compete. We started to grow as a franchise.
physically position saying
He's healthy, which is saying a lot. Physically and mentally, he's in a better position than he has been in for a long time.
ballpark build confidence effort games gave good gotten high leave line mind momentum people position six together turn
After the line of games he put together going into this start, I had my mind made up when I got to the ballpark that if he gave us good effort through six innings, that's going to be plenty. Leave his confidence at a high and turn it over to the people who have gotten us in position to build some of the momentum we've been building.
catcher depth fragile good group groups position starts
The (improvement) starts with the bullpen. That is a pretty good group for us, one of the better groups we have had. And at catcher we have depth there where before it was a fragile position for us.
believe momentum patience position providing showing team
I do believe we are in this position by showing patience and providing opportunities during the season. I don't want to take away from any momentum the team has gained.
ball built came confidence good happen helped himself hit last later might pitches position strikes threw together
He came in and helped Band-Aid things together and put himself in a good position for what might happen later on down the road. He built his confidence up. He pitched a lot better than he did last spring. He hit his spots, threw all his pitches for strikes and got the ball down.
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.