Clint Hurdle Line Quotations

Obviously, he is having a special spring. He's gained the respect of his teammates and he has gained the respect of the players he has played against. But the bottom line is it is spring training. The fact is there is going to be an Opening Day and he is going to have zero home runs.

He hasn't been tested with any kind of competition on the line in two weeks. He's going to have to go through a two inning stint one time, pitch back-to-back days. So there's some distance in front of him.

He got off to a good run, but his command has become a little more inconsistent of late. He's got a history of issues with command. If his command doesn't get to be above average, he will fall in the line of a lot of pitchers who will show you a good game once in a while, and then you wonder why they don't have more success.

The bottom line is, they are in the playoffs. They won the (National League West).

They do walk around a little lighter. They have experience under their belt and a degree of confidence. But they have to build on the success. You can talk about a lot of things, but the bottom line is we won 67 games, and that is not very many.

It's a special spring for him. He's gaining the respect of his teammates. He's gaining the respect of players he's playing against. But the bottom line it's still spring training. So, there's the dose of reality ... that there's going to be an opening day for him and he's going to be hitting .000 and he's going to have no homers. But we do like what we're seeing.

It's a fine line between being intimidated and trying to play smart baseball and win a game.

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.