Clint Hurdle Quotations | Page 2

He got the ball up early but settled in and gave us six strong innings. He was very effective.

He had a chance to put the pitcher away and keep all those runs off the board but he wasn't able to do it and the inning unraveled on him. But he's got a few more starts. I don't have any major concerns about him.

We took a chance, but it's not like we were drawing plays up in the dirt. We talked before the game that he wasn't going to get a chance to beat us.

We took steps all over the joint. It's another positive for us.

My opinions, I'll keep to myself. The replay speaks for itself. We'll see how it unfolds.

Like I said, we're going to have a good year. We have too much talent in that room to dream small.

Matt has had his ups and downs the last few games. He delivered the big hit for us so this couldn't have come at a better time for him.

Somehow we have to find a way to get him involved.

I saw a guy throwing hard but without a lot of command. It was hard to watch. We got to get him tightened up. He threw a lot of pitches.

Spinning out of his delivery. Most of the times when he misses, it's (to his) arm side.

I think by far and away he was way ahead of the pack at the time he went down. But the numbers he has now, they still spell out pretty good in the big scheme of things if you want to dissect numbers and break them down. Everybody else had an opportunity of three months to really put some distance between themselves and him and elevate themselves, but it didn't happen.

Just giving him a rest, right in the middle of spring training. We just want to slow him down a little bit.

Jamey's a spot starter in Kim's spot, ... We've seen Jamey start 40 times in the last year and a half, I feel very solid about my feelings about Jamey.

Our goal was to give them something to hold onto over the winter. At the start of the season, we knew we had a difficult task in front of us, a lot of challenges. A lot of opportunities were extended to a lot of young players. And a lot of young players answered.

I thought he handled a couple of challenges very well. I thought his first 10 pitches were up a bit, and then I thought he got pretty good command of the strike zone down.

I thought he took a very positive first step. He didn't get outside of himself. In the first inning he was mid-20s in pitches, but he battled. He didn't give up a big inning after that. Any time there was traffic, he held runners well. He made pitches when he had to. He mixed his pitches. He held the left-handers very effectively. A big outing for him and a big win for us.

I talked to Todd (on Sunday) night after the game and left another message for him (Monday) morning. He told me he might not make it on this road trip and laughed.

I think there is improvement. More optimism maybe today than there was yesterday.

Our young players give us reason to be optimistic for the future. Holliday continues to improve and should become a good offensive player.

I think in a perfect world, we bit off a little more than you want to chew, but we were able to pull it off.

I was trying to shake some things up. I knew we'd lost six games in a row. I was going to jingle any time I had a chance to jingle today.

I think his back got better but also his approach got better. He went into the season with a lot of different challenges. No. 1, he got called out for maybe possible steroid use, which was a big bunch of horse manure thrown out there.

I think he's capable of throwing . . . 60-65 pitches. So if he can do that, he won't be behind by any means.

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.

I think the jury is still out on his bat. We'll work more with him and maybe see if there's a little more there. We're not talking about hitting home runs. We want him to be more consistent with the barrel. He's shown some improvement.

I think it was as important for the group to win without Todd in the lineup as it was for Todd to see the group win without him,

It got us going in the right direction.

I think we'd like to see his ceiling or find his niche,

I think we've found out about his toughness,

I think we've talked about it all -- his humility, his work ethic. He has a unique passion for the game. He leads by example. In the groups that he's been in, that's been talked about.

I think you saw the passion he has for competition. The way he kept after it and kept us in the ballgame - a couple early innings could have gone south on him. He didn't let it happen.

I think initially we need for him just to go out there and get outs, then we'll find a job a for him.

It is something we have dealt with since Day 1. You can't recreate that environment. It's just the ability to go out there and slow the inning down as much as you can.

We've told Garrett he doesn't have to flinch. He's experienced a special spring in his own right. I think he's having fun watching the guy. I mean, we all are.

We had our chances, but didn't come through. Now it's time to focus on the Reds.

You know he's capable of doing it, and it's extending out over a long period of time. That will be the true test.

Those guys (the middle relief) have some good numbers on the back of their bubble gum cards.

Two weeks of rest is not going to hurt him. It may help him, because it will give him the opportunity to relax.

Those kind of games are signature games. You're lucky if you have one of them in your career.

Those kinds of games are signature games. You're lucky if you have one of them in your career. Matty continues to emerge as an up-and-coming professional hitter.

We have had growing pains, but we are now bearing the fruits of that.

We have worked hard this year to get better. That has started to happen and we want (the players) to reap the fruits of their hard work.

We couldn't buy a hit when we needed one. We went three games where we got the hit when we needed it and we haven't been able to get one the last three games.

We have always been big on guys on the bench being versatile.

Winning a season series is something we didn't talk about much after the first half. You look at the numbers and see where you are and think maybe we can steal a game or two from them. . . . Obviously, we've been able to do a little more than that.

We issued a challenge to him and he's accepted it. Now he's working through it and dealing with it -- and doing very well.

That's a very resilient victory. To be down twice. . . . These guys are just focused on playing the game, inning by inning, and getting the job done.

That's been a redeeming quality, that he has been able to slow things down and been able to get an inning over with before it completely got out of hand. He said he has not been comfortable out of the stretch the last couple of games. I told him I didn't think he was lying. I told him either we have to find a way to make him comfortable or for him to not let any guys get on.

We aren't happy with our defense. Sometimes you can clean it up with pitching or hitting. We didn't do exceptionally well in any area.

We came out tonight and made a statement in the first inning.

We haven't faced much left-handed pitching (since Sept. 20), and I want to try and keep everybody sharp.

We haven't gone there yet. You want to enjoy it. You want to have fun with it. It's an accomplishment in its own right. But, again, we've got a plan in place.

We know Tom is experienced and he is not going to rattle. We want to see them maintain velocity once we have them pitching back-to-back days. Guys are going to be given every opportunity to show they can't do it.

We haven't been sharp. Off the mound, defensively, there are things we should have done better. We didn't make good pitches out of the bullpen when we got close. The offense rallied late, and hopefully that'll give us some momentum going into (today).

Mesa's shape is not an issue, never has been.

Might be some other changes to try and get some offense jump-started.

We are a work in progress. These guys had a lot of baggage laid on them last year. We weren't that good last year. There were a lot of young players cutting their teeth, but they also are players who came up together (through the farm system) and had success together. And they want to have more success together.

We don't take anybody lightly, at home or on the road.

We were up there hacking like chefs at Benihana's the first three innings.

We've got steps to take before that. Five innings tonight, seven innings tomorrow.

We had to revisit that from time to time. But by the end of the season, that added more volume to what he did accomplish.

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.

We've got options. We've created depth all winter to take care of any situations like this. It's very unfortunate. But it has happened, and we'll deal with it accordingly.

We had a lot of guys just running hot, and we were running hot to start the game again tonight. That's a nice come-from-behind victory on the road for us. I've seen a lot of road games.

We got enough mileage out of our long ball tonight before the marine layer hit. That's the latest I've seen the ball travel here in a long time.

That was a pretty swing. That's a tremendously well-struck baseball today with wind blowing the way it was, hit over the scoreboard.

That was vintage Coors Field. Last bucket wins.

That was the hard decision we had to look at a couple of times. Would it just be better for him to go down, let him play, or keep him here and have him working and staying involved in a big league environment?

That was the result of a lot of work the last three weeks, in which (Francis) analyzed what had been happening.

That was a tremendously well struck baseball with the wind blowing the way it was and to hit it over the scoreboard it was a quick four runs.

We've seen him in a lot of different uniforms. You hope things work out for him.

We've seen him play short and how he can play there. We want to keep getting a feel for him at second base.

We've seen this guy before in a Pirate uniform. He's no-nonsense. He comes after people. He's not afraid of contact.

The problem you have there, and it's from my learning experience, is when you have one and you're not really sure of him, you keep using him -- and he keeps not getting the job done. You think, 'This is the right move.' Unfortunately, I've fallen into that trap.

The fact is, Kim pitched without a fastball or command of it. That's usually a recipe for disaster in this park.

We have a youthful lineup. They have gone through a stretch where they have collectively come up short driving runs in. Each time it doesn't happen there seems to be more importance or a heightened awareness the next time, an added weight to be fit into place. That's just part of the experience process they have to get through. They have to realize that no matter what happens, we're going to play another game.

We decided to eliminate the uncertainty. There's no timetable (for his recovery). We need him healthy. Once he is able to play, we will get him out on a (minor-league) rehab assignment and get him some at-bats.

What we need to do is play better baseball. And then there won't be a section closed down. There will be a section opened up.

We've stretched him out to five (games) in a row, at the most, so far,

You don't make the third out at third. You've been taught that since you're six years old. We talked about this the other day. We've done this twice now in the last three ball games.

There is more anticipation on the part of the players than there has been in a long time. The club is growing together and has formed a core group together. They know now that they can compete. The next step is to win.

Those were two grown men out there pitching today. They put a dent in the hardware of Coors Field.

We didn't play our best. We wobbled out of the bullpen, we got six runs on six hits and 10 walks, which probably wasn't very artistic from an offensive standpoint, but we played better than the other team tonight.

Those are called shutdown innings. That's a big part of baseball. When you score, your opportunity to shut out the other team the next inning is there and you need to capitalize on them.

We're not going to continually put 20 rookies out there. That's why we took the inventory that we took the last two years to find out what we had, and find a wave that would land and stay on beach, not be sent back out to the sea.

We're not going to laugh at a 5-4 road trip. We've had times in the past we would have given body parts for a 5-4 road trip.

We probably didn't get the number of runs we should have been able to get. We left a lot of people on base.

We play them 14 more times ... I think the replay speaks for itself.

Whether it's an old team or a young team, ... there's a certain way the game has to be played.

We are new at this. We are starting to like it. We need to keep it going. Each one is a confidence builder. Each one helps the guys feel they belong. Guys each get a chance, and when they perform, they feel good about themselves.

We didn't take advantage of opportunities because we really didn't have any.

We'll see how the winter goes, but he could fall into that,

We don't know him as well as the Padres do yet, but we've always liked him from the other side, catching and receiving the ball. Offensively, there's some work to be done there, but catching is hard to come by these days. Everybody's looking for it right now. We like the depth we have.

We are moving forward with a large group of players rather than having five or six guys we brought in to bridge a gap for a year. We had our first taste of the process. The first two months, it was a very bitter taste. We took a lot of ridicule. But we hung together. We are not out of the woods yet, but we've taken steps forward.

We'll show up. This is a road trip we have struggled with dramatically in the past. . . . We by no means take any team lightly.

There's always a sense of pride you take out on the field to play your best every night. Sometimes your best stinks.

You know what I'm not going to do I'm not going to tell you every move I'm going to make. This isn't a reality TV show. Some things are just best left unsaid. I'll handle the club the way I deem is necessary. They just need to play.

I'm easy to please and hard to satisfy.

One thing I hear from fans is, 'My Dad's got one foot in the grave, and he wants to see the Pirates win ' I've heard that more than anything. That's our goal.

As they say in the rodeo business, he just drew a tough one. There were a lot of positives for Jason to take out of this. He put us in a position to win.