Pittsburgh Pirates manager Clint Hurdle becomes only the fifth manager to win 600 games with the Pirates.
When the Pittsburgh Pirates came from behind to beat the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday, manager Clint Hurdle joined a club that includes Fred Clarke, Danny Murtaugh, Jim Leyland, and Chuck Tanner. In the 137 years, the team has been in existence; those five men are the only Pittsburgh Pirates managers to win 600 games with the team.
Among this group of five, Clint Hurdle has the third-highest winning percentage, behind Clarke and Murtaugh.
Saturday’s win was Pittsburgh’s fourth in a row and put them back on top of the NL Central, which is a spot very few people expected them to be this year. They were expected to finish behind the Cubs, Cardinals, and Brewers, but lead all three by a half-game in a very tight division. The Cincinnati Reds are a distant 10 games back.
Clint Hurdle is in his eighth season with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He took over a team that had gone 57-105 under John Russell in 2010. That was rock bottom for a franchise that had last made the playoffs in 1992, the final year Barry Bonds was on the team.
Clint Hurdle guided the club to a 72-90 record in his first year with the team. They went 79-83 the next year, then finally got the monkey off their backs when they made the playoffs with a 94-68 record. Unfortunately, that season ended with a loss in the five-game division series.