Rockies Hurdle Manager – Head in Different Direction

On Friday, May 29th, the Colorado Rockies fired Clint Hurdle, their manager of seven years. Let me say this: it’s about time.

Through his time with the Rockies, Hurdle had a lone winning season, the 2007 season in which the Rockies made their miraculous run to the World Series. At the time, it appeared that Hurdle was beginning to turn around his career as a below .500 manager, but now it is clear that the 2007 season was not a newly written rule, but the exception to it.

Following the Rockies’ historic sprint to the World Series on a 22-1 record to finish out the season, the Rockies lost the Series in four games to the Boston Red Sox and the magic of Rocktober was lost.

As a fan of the sport of baseball and a resident of Colorado, I have witnessed my share of Rockies games in person, on television, and over the radio, and through my viewing and studying of the Rockies and their personnel, it is clear that Hurdle was not the key to that spectacular run in 2007 and has only hindered the Rockies play since.

From my perspective, Hurdle as a person was not an issue in the least, and that is the reason I would applaud and gladly accept his gaining a front office position. He was seen as a player friendly coach and through his seven years there were few, if any, issues in the clubhouse that became public news and this in large part should be credited to Hurdle. But it was not in the clubhouse where Hurdle went wrong, it was on the playing field.

Game after game, Hurdle game planned sufficiently, placing the best line up in the field, but Hurdle’s errors came in the small in game adjustments. A constant example of this came in his mismanagement of in game pitching changes. Numerous times over my years of watching Rockies’ baseball, Hurdle would leave his starting pitcher in the games an inning too long. Time after time, it would be clear that the pitcher was ending nearing the end of his rope, his batting spot would be up 2nd or 3rd in the next half inning and the expectation would be to pinch hit, and bring in a new pitcher to continue the game, but time and again Hurdle would let the pitcher bat, I would lean to a friend or my father, and comment on my certainty that the pitcher would not make it through the next half inning, only for that to come true.

If this happened once, then it would just be a lucky guess. But it didn’t. It happened time and again. It was constant mistake such as these that costed the Rockies countless ball games and Clint Hurdle his job, and it was about time a change was made. Its not Hurdle’s fault, it just may be that he was not made be to a manager as it appears he lacks the instincts of a Torre or a Francona.

Now, whether Jim Tracy, the interim Manager, becomes the full time man, will not be known for sometime, but if he is able to make better in game decisions and adjustments than his predecessor, the Rockies have a chance to win some baseball games and possibly finish the season close to .500. But if Tracy fails to practice better judgements and lacks the instinct of a manager, the Rockies’ and their fans could be in for another long season.