Pittsburgh Pirates homestand report card for week of 5/3 – 5/8

Managing

Oh, boy. While it’d be easy to make this section an all-out burial of Clint Hurdle, let’s be fair for a second. The Pirates manager was a big reason the team won Tuesday night.

He pulled Brault at the perfect time, and from there, pushed all the right buttons in running his bullpen. As good as Hurdle was Tuesday, however, he was equally terrible Wednesday.

Between Sunday evening and Wednesday afternoon, Kyle Crick and Felipe Vazquez had thrown 29 pitches between them. Yet, for some reason, Crick was deemed unavailable Wednesday. Vazquez was available, but Hurdle inexplicably saved him for the ninth inning. As a result, Feliz gave up a game-tying grand slam, and all hell broke loose.

In the ninth, with the game now tied thanks to Hurdle’s gaffe in judgment, the skipper didn’t use baseball’s best closer either, and the Pirates allowed three runs and lost the game. In between, he let Tyler Lyons bat in a tie game. Yeah.

I badly want to give Hurdle an F and feel I would be justified in doing so. Because of his brilliance Tuesday, however, we’ll go with a D-.

Hopefully, moving forward, Hurdle will be better.