Clint Hurdle, on Brad Hawpe's mammoth homerun yesterday.
The swing was a thing of beauty, my only regret was that the camera person was faked out by Luis Terrero for a little bit so we couldn't follow the flight path from home all the way. Anyway, the quote above was taken from Owen Perkins' notes column at the official site this morning, although it could be found other places, like at the Rocky Mountain News which also reports that Brian Fuentes will pitch today after being held out of his last appearance. Somebody better alert the fantasy bloggers about his back trouble, they might want to know about that, as would Will Carroll at BP, who's system of projecting injury risk rated Fuentes (paid subscription required) surprisingly healthy the other day.
Sticking with Perkins and the official site, yesterday's impressive showing by Ryan Speier makes Perkins' other article an interesting read. Speier's pitches were popping out of his windup at all sorts of angles and hitting different parts of the plate (and quite a few off of it) which is going to make a lot of opposing batters look foolish this season trying to guess once he gets the strike zone thing down a little better. Of course, the problem is going to be finding a spot for him in our crowded 'pen. The article seems to indicate that the Rockies intend on using him in the Springs for a while, with a mid-season call-up in the cards.
Meanwhile, on the left-hand side of things, when the option for replacing Jeremy Affeldt or Tom Martin in the bullpen mix is Mike Gallo, I'm not sure if I should be relieved by Tracy Ringolsby's report in the News that apparently indicates Hurdle's got at least a tiny bit of an open mind on keeping their spots competitive.