Clint Hurdle “Please, Put It All On Me.”

Clintstrodamus Hurdle

Pittsburgh Pirates skipper Clint Hurdle answered a Dejan Kovacevic question about as tersely as you might expect.  When we dug up the transcript, it looks harmless.  The tone was a bit different.

Good for Hurdle.

The Pirates looked really bad in Game One of the NLDS.  A.J. sucked.  Hurdle could have pulled him out after giving up three runs.  Sure, he could have.  Would it have mattered?  The Pirates couldn’t hit Adam Wainwright if he pitched thirty innings tonight.

Yeh, I was pissed off because it felt like Hurdle really gave up, but perhaps it was just all those freaking kryptocurveballs Wainwright kept throwing from his bionic right arm.  The hated ‘tip your cap’ is in order.

Here is the full transcript from the Hurdle postgame interview.  FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

We grabbed the first three questions for you below.

Q.  What went into your thought process with leaving A.J. out there as long as you did?  Was there any move to get somebody up in the bullpen or thought to get somebody up in the bullpen earlier given the situation?
CLINT HURDLE:  Given the situation, with A.J. and his work, we felt that we were going to give him that last hitter, Freese, get the groundball double‑play, see if we could get some balance and keep the game right there where it was.  Three feet to the left, ball is by us.  Three more runs score after that.
Please, put it all on me.  That was my decision, so as I’ve told you guys as to the fault at our club, when we win, give the players all the credit; when we lose, give the manager all the blame.

Q.  Was  ready before Freese came up?
CLINT HURDLE:  Yeah, I believe he was ready, yeah, absolutely.

Q.  You guys have played good defense all year.  There were a few errors today.  Was that just more of a game kind of getting out of hand early from the mound or just one of those things that happens?
CLINT HURDLE:  We had a rough game.  Game 164 was rough.  That’s one of the things we’ve been real good at is we don’t overcook things we don’t play well.  We go in there, honestly self‑evaluate what we have to do tomorrow.  We’re down one game in the series, and we’ll move on.

Q.  When Ray went out there, was there any indication when he came back of what was giving A.J. problems with his command or control?
CLINT HURDLE:  Well, yeah, we’ve got some thoughts.  We don’t always share everything.  We don’t want to tip too many people off on what we’re working on or trying, some of the adjustments we’re trying to make.
But I think there was an adjustment there he was trying to get to that he wasn’t able to do with much consistency today.