Pittsburgh Pirates manager Clint Hurdle. Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
The Pittsburgh Pirates are coming off back-to-back postseason appearances after 20 straight losing seasons, but manager Clint Hurdle wants to make sure there is not a feeling of comfort in their spring training camp.
“I’ve said this since I joined up, you’ll hear this comment if you ask people throughout the day, ‘How you doing?’ and they’ll say ‘just another day,'” Hurdle said. “We don’t have time for just another day. Elite organizations don’t have that opportunity.
“We’ve got to continue to be hungry, and I do think that’s a term that might not be used enough in our industry or shared with players is the need for hunger within our game.”
The Pirates have almost no open roster spots, so there will not be a great deal of internal competition this spring in Bradenton, Fla. However, Hurdle would like to use spring training and the Grapefruit League season to work on some team weaknesses.
The manager would like to see the Pirates improve on their baserunning. They were successful on just 68.9 percent (104 of 151) of their stolen base attempts last season when
In an effort to improve their performance on the base paths, the Pirates will have first base coach Rick Sofield and third base coach Nick Leyva switch positions. Sofield is also Pittsburgh’s baserunning instructor.
“We have athletes that I believe can run the bases in a more dynamic fashion,” Hurdle said. “We’ve gotten better. But the progress has been incremental. For the talent we have, I think we can make a big push forward there.”
Hurdle would also like to see his pitchers make at least a small contribution offensively. Last season, the staff hit a putrid .098 with just two extra-base hits in 345 plate appearances.
“To be able to bunt the ball, to be able to swing the bat, to be able to do something from an offensive side is an area we’re continuing to explore and learn how to make better improvement from what we have,” Hurdle said.
The Pirates finished second in the National League Central behind the St. Louis Cardinals for the second straight year but again finished first in the NL wild-card standings. That came after two decades of losing records, the longest such streak of futility in American professional sports history.
