Clint Hurdle Behind Quotations

Here's a guy that has been through so much over the past year. He's put all that behind him to become a very confident pitcher. Tonight his confidence in his sinker helped him get 13 groundball outs.

His counts got cleaner. He started with an inconsistent command, behind in counts. He got better as the game went on. There's better there, but that's winning without your best stuff early and then tightening up as you go along.

His confidence behind the plate is as good as any catcher in the National League. And he has the skills to match. He's changed the dynamic for us back there.

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.

He had a lot of good things going on tonight. He worked both sides of the plate. He was never behind in the count.

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

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.

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.

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

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

When he plants his front foot and really stays behind his swing, he's got a little gap power. How it plays out, time will tell, but he has the ability to hit a ball out of the ballpark.

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.

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.