Clint Hurdle Quotations | Page 3

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.

We weren't at our best offensively. Batista didn't make it any easier on us.

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.

There has really not been any separation. We don't have a fifth starter right now.

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.

We saw a different pitcher than what we heard about.

We keep knocking fences down that have been put up over the years. We're stripping the paint.

We're not looking for cheerleaders. We're looking for men that can make a difference, and when a man has something to say, it's something of substance.

We're not looking to fiddle around too much, but they both have qualities that we can take advantage of.

We're not messenger boys. We want to be delivery boys. We have to play and win games.

We were behind the entire game, so that changes our strategy some.

We have as many questions as we do answers. We have in-house candidates.

We have a starting pitcher on the disabled list right now and he will come off sometime this season. So competition, there's always competition.

When he gets in a groove there's some pop behind it. He brings some noise.

We've got Day in place. We've got Fogg in place. We've got pitchers to step up if they need to step up.

We've got different plans for Bonds. We're only going to pitch to him in innings that end in vowels.

The regular season is another world, but this is the only vehicle we have for him to put what he has worked on in play. It beats the heck out of spinning his wheels and punching out.

We're starting to make some marks in the right direction on the road. The layout of the land behind us is what it is. We can't change that. We can change what's in front of us.

We want to see his command, we want him to utilize his pitches, ... We also want to see him use his two-seam fastball and sinkerball.

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.

Until we have somebody ready to replace him, we'll be patient. We're not looking for a replacement, we're looking for him to pitch better.

We're going to give him a little more time to work his way out of it. He's an important part of the lineup without Todd. . . . He's not trying to pull everything. He's conscious of going to the right side. When he gets hot, he can do major damage.

We bit off a little more than we could chew. But they proved they could handle it.

We can definitely get used to (having Kim around), because while he's had his trials and tribulations in other areas, he's playing good baseball for us.

We're just seeing how healthy he is. He is still working his way back arm-strength wise. There might be a little bit more arm there as he continues to pitch. We've always liked him.

We stuck him in there when we ran out of other options last year. He settled into that role real well. He's not just a guy hitting behind (Todd) Helton anymore. He's a legitimate fourth-place hitter.

We've all put a lot of work in this project. The organization has put a lot of work in. He's put a lot of work in. Coach (Davey) Collins has put a lot of work in. When you put that much work in you want to benefit from it when it clicks.

three second basemen I want to see play.

We know he can hit. Right now we want to see him get the touch and feel back (for catching) and we moved him over to first during the morning drills to see how he looks there.

Everything will start to come into focus and we will pay more attention to detail.

Do we look at Jason's three-plus years, or Cookie's two strong months? They both want to do it and that's good. They know they are going to match up with the top dog from the other teams more often than not, but they want to do it because they want the challenge. That's what you want to see in your pitchers.

What parenting comes down to, I think, if you want to do it right, is you've got to get outside yourself. That's what children do for you. Well, the good Lord has given me all kinds of things right now to get outside myself.

Every team that added something is hoping that something pops. Their situation is not more removed than ours. We are moving forward with men that showed some value and took positive steps for us.

Everybody that took the mound today was really good.

Everybody thought it was a stab and something unique. Sunny showed us a little something today, and in a game we needed some length, BK gave it to us.

Communication and managing crisis, and I use that word loosely, that is gotten with experience. I just think it would be very difficult, and it's a very challenging situation to be in, to never have done it anywhere before and have to do it at this level.

I still envision that duck swimming on the pond,

Things have gone his way, but the thing I will continue to hold onto is where was it for the two months it wasn't there?

Things we have talked about for three months, he has been able to put into play. He has had a challenging season. We've found out about his toughness. We've seen his competitiveness. He has become more coachable.

The top of their lineup was presenting problems.

You aren't going to replace a Todd Helton, but we have guys that can do things for us.

The grass seems greener, the colors are brighter.

We were down 7-1, but still made things interesting. We're not going to go away.

The second year is when you expect a full recovery.

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.

We will make our decision (today). We will evaluate what has happened and talk to the parties involved before we make any announcements.

We've only won 62 games this year. We've still got a lot of work ahead of us.

We love what Ojeda does defensively. We'll see if we can get him tightened up to add a little more offense.

I've talked to him about fatigue and he says he knows fatigue and he's not experiencing it. He said he wishes it was (fatigue).

I've never seen it before. I'm sure he won't do it again.

They all got themselves in real good baseball shape coming in. That's what you like to see the most.

It would be like guys talking about cars. Rebuilding a carburetor is nothing for them. For me, that's an impossibility, it's not going to happen unless I take it somewhere. But for a hitter those are terms that are pretty commonplace.

It was a nice challenge for him to be able to respond to that. We aren't in the same situation that some other teams are in. We can challenge some guys and see how they respond. That's why we ran him back out (in the fifth).

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.

With respect to the privacy of himself and his family, I'm not going to make any comment on his condition, other than the fact we believe it's in his best interest to put him on the disabled list. The doctors acquired all the information they needed.

Whatever we do, we won't make a big deal out of it.

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.

What was important to me is the way the guys who didn't make the club performed.

Very rarely do I like to soapbox for one of my players, but if this guy is not in serious consideration, all the people involved in the process are missing the boat. This guy had his side cut open. The way he's pitched, it needs to be recognized.

Very unfortunate. He was having a good spring. We were liking what we were seeing out of Josh.

You'd think if you handled him, your chances of winning are better. We were able to handle him. We weren't able to handle some of the other guys.

The race is on, but you have to take a humanistic approach. Nobody is under a magnifying glass. We just want them to go out and pitch.

We had a hand in about everything that went sideways on us.

We will pitch to him only when we feel it's practical.

We had a season to get to know each other. We know how he works. He knows how we run our operation. We want to make sure he's committed to our organization and our plan and to do that, we would rather be face to face to make sure we understand each other. . . . He has always been kind of singled out and we want to try and have him be one of 25 and fit in to that approach.

We created depth all winter long to be prepared if something like this arises. Three years ago this happened and we were in a shambles. You never want to see people injured, but it is part of the game. You have to live with it. If you have depth, living with it can be a easier.

Both of them are looking better and more healthy than I have seen them in a long time. They have both been here working out for a while.

We didn't miss many opportunities because we didn't have many.

Ramirez gave us a big shot in the arm. The one thing about Ramirez is that he just keeps on bringing it. We've seen him throw nothing but strikes this year, and I think he was only behind two hitters, but he was a little all over the zone tonight. He had to throw more pitches, but he battled back.

The thing was, people we had talked to over the winter didn't want to come our way. We were able to get three of them halfway through the season. So it wasn't by design.

Offensively, he is finding his niche. I think he is well aware there is probably more there. Most of the questions everybody had about him going in should be answered by now. They have for me.

Every year at this time of the season you tip your hat to them. If you ever get people saying that about your organization you are in good shape.

The more arms we have and the more experience we have just makes us stronger.

(Day's) command was poor. His changeup was too hard. He threw a lot of changeups that were not squaring up.

(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.

As long as you play it, if you don't execute, you're putting yourself in jeopardy of not winning. You've got to score a whole bunch of runs and this was a night it didn't happen. Their bullpen, obviously, was very effective.

That's not the way it is. I think it takes some pressure off of him. And it shows those guys what they are capable of collectively.

That's just one of the toughest situations I put myself in, having to take him out and putting in a pinch-runner. It worked to my favor tonight.

As a player, I was a quick-fix type guy, ... I wanted it now. The society we live in wants everything now. We're results-oriented. Well, I've come to understand that results are just that. And sometimes they come in their own time.

as good a game as you will see here

They scored one more run than us. There's not much more you can say.

They scored one more run than us. There's really nothing else to say.

This guy has a very workable package and a passion to play the game. I was open-ended with him today because of his competitiveness and he made a statement to finish it off and throw a complete game with 118 pitches.

Sometimes a change of scenery can help out with the confidence level. That's as good an outing as you're going to see at this ballpark for as long as it stands here.

Some times the male ego gets in the way of a lot of things.

Sometimes we are going to slow him down a little bit.

Teams had issues to deal with over the winter. We had less than most anybody because we had so much more movement the last few years.

There's other guys we want to look at, more importantly, for next year's bullpen, ... If we need him, he's available.

The responsibility's on the runner to run through home plate all the time. There's no reason to ever slow down unless it's a home run. That way it's safety first and there's no questions.

Every year, there is an air of optimism and a lot of hope attached to it. This year, there is still hope, but there's more substance and not as much hope.

Every year you show up here, you at least have a fraction of hope. This year there's a lot more substance to go with that hope. They know (the division) is open. It's time to make a statement on the field.

There's nothing to read into that. It's the first opportunity to get him in a game and try to split the innings up and give them both opportunity to pitch.

There's nothing wrong with that. Now you can start adding up the one- and two-year players and see that we've got a lot of youth on our side.

There's no doubt in my mind that he's gong to get better, and that's what I told Matt earlier in the season when we had a sit-down. I said, 'You're not just hitting fourth anymore. You're our cleanup hitter.' Two months later, I told him, 'What you are doing now is providing protection in the lineup.' That's a big statement for a second-year player.

With production comes entitlement. If you play better you get more playing time, which means more opportunity. Cory has been on a successful run of late. He is stroking the ball well and playing great defense.

There are a number of roles he could fill. We need to see how he handles them.

There are going to be opportunities in different roles because we don't want to pitch anyone more than three days in a row.

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.

You take a more meaningful focus when you are in Todd's situation. He had to feel something special (after the home run).

You talk about being challenged and answering the challenge. He has hit the ball (recently) as well as I have ever seen him hit the ball.