Since Thursday, when the Diamondbacks fired manager Bob Melvin, storm clouds have been gathering over Rockies manager Clint Hurdle.
The parallels are pretty obvious. The two teams that met in the National League Championship Series 19 months ago are dueling for last place in the NL West.
Hurdle knows the reasons don’t matter much at this point. What matters are results, and the Rocks aren’t seeing them. Their loss to the Marlins on Saturday night dropped them to 11-18, the same record they had after 29 games a year ago on their way to 74-88.
“There comes a point in time when you can’t keep saying your guys are over-trying,” Hurdle acknowledged. “That doesn’t work anymore. I’d be trying to kid myself. You’re either good enough to get things done, or you’re not good enough to get things done.”
General manager Dan O’Dowd is not yet ready to make the move his former assistant, Josh Byrnes, made in Arizona, but he’s not offering any long-term assurances, either.
“I realize our record makes people unhappy,” O’Dowd said Saturday night. “We’re frustrated with it because we think we should be better.
“At some point in time, everybody has to step up, and not just the manager. We have good players and some of them just aren’t playing up to their ability. And I believe they will, at some point in time, hopefully sooner rather than later.”
How long is he willing to wait?
“I don’t know if there’s a magic number to that, but I do think if you get to a point that a change needs to be made for the best interests of the organization, you know it,” O’Dowd said. “I don’t feel that. That’s not something I would recommend at this point in time.”
If anything, the Rocks’ performance so far this year has been more frustrating than a year ago. They have outscored their opponents 143-141 and still lost 18 of 29 games. They are 1-11 in games decided by one or two runs.
When they pitch well, as Jorge De La Rosa did Saturday, they don’t hit. When they hit well, they don’t pitch.
The organization believes in young players such as Troy Tulo-witzki, Chris Iannetta and Ian Stewart, but they are batting .223, .209 and .197, respectively. The top two starting pitchers, Aaron Cook and Ubaldo Jimenez, have ERAs over 5. So do Huston Street and Manny Corpas, the reluctant closers.
Hurdle and O’Dowd believe these players will come around, but the question is, how long can they wait for it to happen before somebody pays the price?
“You know, change doesn’t necessarily guarantee anything other than it may make people feel good that we made change,” O’Dowd said. “It doesn’t guarantee any difference in play, it doesn’t guarantee anything other than it shows that you’ve done something. It doesn’t guarantee that you’re doing the right thing.”
O’Dowd and Hurdle mentioned the possibility of bringing in a player or two from Triple-A Colorado Springs, which is off to a strong start. O’Dowd said a trade to shake up the team chemistry is unlikely.
“I realize the Nuggets made a trade for Chauncey (Billups) early in the year,” O’Dowd said. “In baseball, people let the season unfold a lot longer than this to make a trade. Everybody does.”
Fans have blistered Hurdle for constantly changing the lineup. He argues the inconsistency of everyone other than Todd Helton and Brad Hawpe has made it necessary.
“Everybody’s looking for continuity, including the manager,” Hurdle said. “We’ve been patient with some guys.”
All the work in spring training on moving runners along and not trying to do too much at the plate seems to have gone for naught. Friday night, the Rocks put a runner on second with nobody out four times and never got one of them as far as third.
“It’s always frustrating when you don’t play up to your potential, which is pretty much what we’ve done to date,” Helton said. “We know we have the talent here. We just have to play better. I think we’re pressing a little bit. That’s fairly obvious.”
This is the same explanation that was offered all of last year. It’s grown stale. Whatever the Rocks are doing, it isn’t working.
If the results don’t improve soon, O’Dowd will have little choice but to give Hurdle a chance to reminisce with Melvin about the NLCS that now seems so long ago.
Dave Krieger: 303-954-5297 or dkrieger@denverpost.com
