Clint Hurdle Throw Quotations

If he throws 100 pitches, he's got to pitch five innings.

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.

He really struggled to throw any strikes (on the third-base side) of the plate,

He played short catch yesterday and long toss today. We'll try to get him up on a slope and throw tomorrow, and see where we go from there. He's making good progress, though.

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.

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.

He didn't pitch down enough. He didn't throw his sinker enough. He has to remember he is a sinkerball pitcher.

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.

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 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.

Obviously, the one inning got away from him. He didn't throw strikes. He can fine-tune that, and for him to take the next step, that's an issue he's going to have to address this season. It's always been a little bit of a rock in his shoe, the walks at times, especially the quick ones, the four-pitch ones.

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.

Danny handles the staff extremely well. His defensive skills are second to none. And his ability to throw is as good as there is in our league. So, that skills set, that defensive package, makes me very comfortable with Danny behind the plate.

I don't care who you are, if you get called out publicly, it affects your focus and concentration. You can say it doesn't and you can try your hardest not to let it seep into your work or what you do. But that's something out of his control that also got thrown onto his plate that he needed to deal with.

He made nice strides this spring. He just needs to keep making the strides that he made. There was a point in time last season where we were having trouble throwing the ball around the infield. Now he threw the ball accurately, his release times were quick and efficient. I think he swung the bat efficiently. He's using his off-gap again from both sides. He had a good spring.